Out of Time
by Jadebell
Summary: Multi-fandom crossover. When a Time Crash threatens to destroy all of reality, Dashi teams up with Link and Professor Layton to put things right.
1. Prologue: Villains

**Notes: **This fic is the first of a series of fics that involves a temporal disaster known as the Time Crash. It follows several interweaving plots featuring characters from the fandoms listed below. I've tried to write the fic so that no knowledge of the fandoms is required to understand it. That being said, the majority of the fic is set in the world of Xiaolin Showdown, since it is this world where the Time Crash originates from. It is a world of kung-fu monks, chi magic and mystical artefacts, something that appeals to my inner sense of adventure, and I hope I've done the series justice.

Rated for graphic violence, fantasy violence, death, and for some mild to moderate language. Genres are action/adventure, fantasy, supernatural & horror.

**List of main fandoms:**

Xiaolin Showdown  
Professor Layton (based on _Professor Layton and Pandora's Box_)_  
_American Dragon: Jake Long_  
_Legend of Zelda (based on the _Phantom Hourglass_ DS game)  
Pokemon Diamond and Pearl  
Danny Phantom

That's all! I hope people enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it. :)

* * *

**Out of Time**

* * *

**Prologue: Villains**

* * *

The brain: a miraculous organ made up of electrical pathways, of flowing ions and electrons, and of complex chemical reactions, all of which are capable of generating emotions, images, feelings and memories to store all those experiences in. Inside the brain there resides the potential for producing grand, booming symphonies; novels with the power to invoke great sensations; and luscious art and cultured sculptures, with the beauty to captivate millions for generations.

Realities within realities can be created in the blink of an eye. That is why it is called the mind's eye. A mind can travel to a faraway world and yet never truly leave home. If the brain was simple enough to understand, so say the philosophers, then we would be too simple to understand it.

However, sometimes a mind gets stuck inside its own world. Sometimes a mind refuses to see anything else. Sometimes a mind is unable to see anything else. And in this particular mind, there was no good, and there was no evil.

There just was.

When he saw another person, he didn't see another _person_. It was almost instinctual, really. He couldn't help himself. His mind didn't have the capacity for empathy, nor any concept of the consequences of his actions. Offices and schools and houses always fell easily before him, and desolate ruins that a major earthquake could have caused were what he left behind, but he didn't care. He never cared. As much as the indiscriminate, wanton destruction of buildings pleased him, it was not quite as satisfying as hunting and catching all the people inside. They could move. Moving objects were a lot more fun to play with. He liked it when they ran.

Complete and total devastation followed in his wake, but the screams didn't bother him, nor did the blood and mess of limbs and organs that was the result of committing mass murder. One at a time or all at once; slowly and painfully or swift and silent - it didn't matter. He enjoyed every death. Relished every moment.

But it wasn't evil. Not in the world inside his mind. He just did it because it was fun.

* * *

Time had no sense of fun.

Time had no need for fun.

Time had no time for fun.

In all, Time should just run.

But Time had gained a consciousness. Time had grown a physical form. Time had a brain, and had even gained a name. Time was the colour purple. Time had entered a world. And, now, Time was gaining knowledge.

Time knew about the Big Collapse, the "Time Crash", even if all the creatures had forgotten. Time had drawn all those shattered pieces of itself into this world and made a huge crystalline structure, in an effort to stop itself being drawn inside the disturbance. Time didn't know it had made things worse. Time was only protecting itself, you see.

And now, Time thought, things were supposed to get back to normal, just like that?

No.

Now, Time was angry.

Time decided that it had had enough. It would absorb every single living thing into itself. Each life force. Every emotion. Every memory. Every moment. Why not? Then it could go back to just being Time again because, in all, Time should just run.

Time raised its tentacles.

* * *

Lightning flashed atop the cliff.

Chase Young, Heylin Lord of Darkness, was not a happy man right now. He stared at the sphere of purple magic floating in front of him, almost not believing what was being displayed on the whirling ball. Something was wrong with the timeline. Something was very, very wrong with the timeline. Events that weren't supposed to happen were popping up. Events that should have happened had just disappeared. And, worst of all, after a certain point in the timeline, Time itself had simply collapsed.

Through his magical sphere, he could see that the Xiaolin temple was no longer there. In its place was nothing but grass and rocks. It went beyond a mere building vanishing. It was as if the Xiaolin order had never been founded, instead completely erased from history. It meant that generations of monks had also never existed, including both himself and the current focus of his evil plans, Omi.

Chase had only met Omi a few times, but even so he could still see hidden potential. Omi was incredibly skilled in the Xiaolin arts for one so young. Having him on the side of darkness could bring a tremendous advantage, and that was why Chase was keeping a special eye on him. But with the Xiaolin temple gone, Omi was nowhere to be found.

What was causing it?

When Chase used the magic sphere to look far enough back in time, back to fifteen hundred years ago, he could see that Grandmaster Dashi wasn't where he should have been either. He had vanished, shortly before the Xiaolin temple of the past was to be completed. Dashi was the founder of the Xiaolin order, and if he "suddenly" wasn't there...

It explained why the present Xiaolin temple wasn't there. With Dashi absent, it had simply never been built. However, it didn't explain why Chase himself still existed in his current form.

Because, if the grandmaster had disappeared and no Xiaolin order had been started, then Chase would never have joined said order. He wouldn't have needed to try so hard to become a fully-fledged Xiaolin Dragon. He would never have become jealous over his ex-friend Guan getting a temple for himself. He wouldn't have listened to Hannibal Roy Bean and drunk the Lao Mang Long soup. He would not have surrendered his soul to become immortal so that he could live for all those fifteen hundred years until the present day, slowly gaining power and becoming the most skilled dark Heylin master in the world.

He wouldn't be here, right now, staring at a floating sphere of purple magic.

Time paradoxes were such a _nuisance_.

And never mind the things that _were_ supposed to happen - he didn't even want to start thinking about the things that _weren't_ supposed to happen. All of his large cats - his loyal obedient servants - had turned into hideous yellow rats! And they were certainly _not_ obedient, not any more. They'd somehow even followed him all the way up here on this cliff, and were running around and around in circles, making that horrendous _Pika!_ racket just to annoy him. Another weirdity of time.

Chase thought hard to remember, back to his days when he had still been a Xiaolin monk, and still on the side of good. One day, fifteen hundred years ago, Dashi had told both Chase and his then friend Guan: time had limitations.

Time was rather like a rubber band, he'd said, while demonstrating with a couple of said bands in his hands. If you fiddled around with it, you altered history. Tying two previously unrelated moments to each other? No problem. That was how the magic of the Sands of Time worked - it was the temporal equivalent of a slingshot. You could even make an enormous ball of timelines and try bouncing it against the walls of reality, if you really wanted, but stretch time too far and...

Well, time had limitations. It really didn't like being pulled in too many directions at once.

Of course, Dashi had warned them of this after having snapped the rubber band of time _himself_, and _then_ having to find a way to repair it. There was nothing like hands-on experience; the Sands of Time in this case had been more the temporal equivalent of a ballista. Time hadn't liked that at all.

Another of Dashi's metaphors was the one with the glass window, where, if time cracked, it let all kinds of odd things into the timeline that shouldn't have been there. Chase and Guan had both got the idea by now. You could change the timeline in tiny ways, but if you tried to change it _too_ much, if you tried to make time go outside its natural boundaries, weird things would start to happen. Change it even more, and the universe would be destroyed.

The problem was, Chase in the present day now had the feeling that the window had cracked. Perhaps several times. Some complete idiot _had_ gone and messed around with the timeline too much. And now he, Chase, was a paradox about to fall over the edge into non-existence. The oxbow lake was yet another Dashi metaphor, where you were trapped in a lake of your own alongside the main Time river, but oxbow lakes of Time couldn't last forever. Sooner or later, they ran out of time, and filled up with Nothingness.

Chase noticed that the monstrous yellow pika-rats were gathering in a large circle, around _him_. What were they up to?

Lightning flashed atop the cliff... and then there was nothing.

* * *

Jack Spicer was a hidden consciousness behind the eyes. He was in the background, just watching. Watching a dream. Watching someone else's hidden memory.

He was in the middle of an argument. His parents (but they were someone else's parents) were shocked, in denial. His sister (but he was an only child) was disappointed. His friends (but he didn't have friends) were looking guilty and embarrassed. It was then that the building exploded.

Somehow the roaring flames missed him, went through him as if he wasn't really there. But relief soon turned to panic and terror. He ran wildly through the smoke, seeing his sister by some rubble on the floor, thrown clear by the blast. Icy horror stopped him short, gripped his body and squeezed his heart tight. His sister lay lifeless, a pool of blood on the floor, skull cracked right open, like a smashed glass bottle.

He screamed. He didn't stop screaming, not when the firefighters pulled him away, not when he was taken into an ambulance, not when the paramedics tried to calm him down because he was shaking uncontrollably. Everything happened in a blur, after that. The paramedics and the hospital and the doctors and the counsellor just bustled by, like a quick breeze...

A couple of days later, the sobbing had stopped. Everything had stopped. The police were interviewing what amounted to an emotional zombie. He couldn't focus on the here and now, couldn't bring himself to care about what were, at this point, meaningless trivialities. In the end, life itself was so weak. So _frail_. What was the point of living?

And inside, in the background, Jack felt the overwhelming grief from a person that wasn't him, a torture rack of anguish; a black hole of sorrow, depression, despair. His chest ached terribly, a sharp pain that dulled his senses, making him oblivious to anything else. A part of him had been torn out, leaving nothing but an empty shell. It could never be replaced.

They were all dead.

* * *

And then, Jack's house exploded.

Omi could hardly believe he had survived the blast, but an icy shiver down his spine confirmed that Jack had saved him by turning him ghostly at the crucial moment. This was rather fortunate, since Jack's house had been completely incinerated. All that remained of the once proud and stately house and its immediate surroundings was a charcoaled crater. Omi might have been quite impressed – even a little awed – at the display of explosive power had the rest of the Xiaolin monks not also been inside the house at the same time.

"They're… they're dead…"

"So am I!" said Jack, who accentuated his point by phasing his ghostly arm right through Omi's body, prompting another shiver. "But we've got to get out of here! Don't you get it? We have to fix it so none of this ever happens! Otherwise it'll be stuck like this forever!"

Omi frowned at him sceptically, until Jack used his poltergeist-like powers to hover an hourglass in front of him. It was the Sands of Time. Hope rising, Omi took the Sands of Time from the air, shivering again as the spirit of Jack Spicer took temporary refuge inside his body in preparation for the time travel.

He held the Sands of Time up, feeling something cold and gooey on his left leg just before leaving that time. As he travelled back in time to three weeks ago, to when and where this had all started, he looked down and realized that there was a lasso formed around his left ankle. At the same time he noticed this, he was jerked, and forced to the ground.

Never one to give in so easily, Omi slammed a powerful fist down hard on the pseudo rope before he could be dragged on the ground, instantly dissipating it. He immediately leapt to his feet and faced his enemy - the demon who had orchestrated the explosion. The monster who had callously murdered his friends.

He refused to cry. Instead, he glared fire at his opponent and crouched down slightly, like a tiger poised to pounce. He took out the blue Orb of Tornami, ready to fire a magical swell of water. The fearsome demon sneered contemptuously in response, daring Omi to try _anything_ – and then suddenly Jack reappeared, and preempted everyone's next move.

"Shard of Lightning!"

The powers of the Shard of Lightning came into play, and the world around Omi froze. But the evil demon _didn't_. Why had the Shard not frozen him?

"_Nice try_." Another dark chuckle. "But you're out of time."

"We shall see," Omi said angrily. Again, he held up the Sands of Time.

"No, wait!" Jack cried, even as Omi called out the hourglass's name.

There was the deafening roar of an explosion. And time decided, quite frankly, that it had had enough.

It shattered.

* * *

"See, now, that scenario just went kablooie too," said a voice, in impatient, almost disappointed tones, like a frustrated teacher or parent rebuking a naughty child who had been misbehaving for the umpteenth time.

"And he escaped _again_," added a second voice, sounding rather more irate than the first, as if the escape was something that just shouldn't have happened under any circumstances. Not even if the universe had been destroyed. "He's your responsibility, you're supposed to guarding him, not – not letting all this happen!"

"I love it when you state the obvious," a third voice said, with barely disguised sarcasm. "It's such a relief to know that you're going to do everything in your power to do something about it." There was a deliberate pause before it added mockingly, "Oh, wait – you _can't_, can you?"

The second voice sputtered, momentarily overcome with rage. Still incredulous, it then asked, "Would you rather we remained silent while we watch you destroy the universe_ several times over_?"

"That would be preferable, yes," voice three replied dryly. "If you're going to assign me to do your universe-destroying tasks for you, the least you could do is keep quiet and let me get on with it."

The second voice made an angry, surprised grunt, but the first voice overrode this with a sigh that clearly signified that it was used to this kind of comment from the third one.

"Fine," said voice one grudgingly, "this time we'll stay for the entire duration. And we won't interfere or complain no matter what happens in this round, you obviously have something in mind. You usually do…"

"No complaining?" voice three asked, somewhat sceptical.

"No complaining?" voice two also asked, pouring all manner of disbelief into those two words.

"No complaining," affirmed the first voice. "We'll simply watch and let things take their course."

"You do that," said the third voice pleasantly. "After all, it's what you do best."

* * *

**Author's note:** Yes, it's supposed to be confusing. Keep reading and all will be revealed.


	2. Chapter 1: Grandmaster Dashi

**Chapter 1: Grandmaster Dashi**

* * *

The Chinese monk was in his late twenties, fairly tall, and of moderate build. With a shaven head and black and white kung fu robes, he was a master of martial arts, creator of the Shen Gong Wu, founder of the Xiaolin order, and quite possibly the world's laziest bum.

His name was Dashi, and he was currently relaxing on some rocky ground beside a stone wall, leaning with his arms folded behind his head, and with a thoughtful, serene expression on his face. The wall had holes where it was not finished, and in fact his chosen place of rest looked more like the site of ancient stone ruins than the temple he wanted it to become.

He waited.

He was amazed at how far he'd got in the construction of the Xiaolin temple. He could picture it in his mind, and it would be a sight to behold once completed, but it would be missing something extremely important - the people inside. The only people currently in the Xiaolin order were himself and two others, which was a bit of a set back when you were trying to establish a new kung fu style that could train people to be able to go up against the forces of darkness.

If only Wuya would stop blowing the blasted building sites up, maybe he might get some progress on getting some new recruits. But the local people were too scared of Wuya. Even though she was only one on the Heylin side who was currently active, she was a very powerful witch, and Dashi had had to work very hard over the last couple of months to prevent her from taking over the world with a snap of a finger.

To combat Wuya's magic, he had created the mystical objects called Shen Gong Wu. Each object granted its user a different ability, and was forged with his own chi, utilising a new kind of magic that he'd developed over the years. They constituted his very own unique brand of ammunition. It was a lot more difficult for Wuya's minions to take over a village when the villagers could use the Shen Gong Wu to fight back. But, although she saw the value in taking the Wu away from anyone who could use them against her, Wuya hadn't really been concerned with the objects in themselves, because who needed Shen Gong Wu when you could practice real magic?

But then he had gone and created a new Shen Gong Wu. _That_ Shen Gong Wu. And suddenly she was a lot more interested. This time her greed had gotten the better of her. Unlike the others, this Wu was so powerful it had purportedly broken all of Time. You didn't get much more destructive than that, frankly. Even Heylin magic couldn't do that. She wasn't about to let Dashi keep possession of something like that if she could help it.

This was precisely the break that Dashi had been waiting for. Today, Wuya had finally been drawn out, away from her magical stronghold. While his comrades Chase and Guan were busy tearing through her golem army, Dashi hoped to cut off her retreat from behind, to catch her before she escaped again.

He waited.

He shifted position, taking out the newest – and hopefully last – Shen Gong Wu from his robes. It was called the Sands of Time, a golden hourglass with the power to travel through time. If Wuya ever got her hands on this one, it would be an instant game over, but Dashi knew that the lure of a powerful time-travelling Shen Gong Wu would be too much for even Wuya to resist. It was a risk he was prepared to take. He was tired of the deadlock.

He waited.

And sure enough, there she was, levitating over wooden beams, through the framework of the unfinished temple, furtively searching for her prize. She landed, straightening the bottom edge of her black dress, and then continued her hunt, in an _it's around here somewhere _way.

In a strange twist, Wuya could sense the mystical energies of each Shen Gong Wu. It was a bit of an unfortunate side-effect, but Dashi figured that if you're using chi magic to create objects with crazy powers, you work with whatever you can get. At least they worked in the way that they were supposed to. Usually.

"Hey there!" he called, and the witch immediately looked around for the source of the voice. She stared at him then, surprised that he would give away his position so offhandedly. He was still sitting down.

He held up the hourglass tauntingly. "Looking for this?"

"Dashi!" she hissed, firing a green blast from her hands without a second thought.

The expression "looks can be deceiving" definitely came into play whenever one thought of Dashi. In the blink of an eye, he was alert: he leapt up high into the air from his resting spot, the blast destroying the stone wall behind him instead. He rolled to the side as he landed, narrowly avoiding being squashed by a stone fist that was easily as big as he was. He twirled round, dealing a chi-powered roundhouse kick that smashed the enchanted golem's head into several pieces.

"Aw," he said, grinning widely as the golem's body fractured, collapsing into little grey rocks behind him, "and here I thought you might be pleased to see me!"

She smiled coldly in response, firing several more green blasts in his direction that he dodged just as easily. "I'll be pleased to see you _dead_."

Funnily enough, Dashi preferred not to use the Shen Gong Wu himself if he could help it. Useful though they were, they were really a back-up measure so that others could deal with the Heylin side if for any reason he failed. He didn't want to rely on them too much, which meant not relying on them at all. It was easy enough for him to fight using chi elemental energy.

But even if he did use the Shen Gong Wu in combat, he wouldn't have used the Sands of Time against Wuya right now, not after what had happened with them the last time. Still, it was that major disturbance in the balance that had gotten Wuya so interested in the hourglass in the first place, so it couldn't have been that bad…

He was distracted by his thoughts, for only a moment, but it was enough. Another golem charged into him from behind, headbutting him and sending him flying into the wall. The Sands of Time flew out of his hand; Dashi reacted quickly and jumped to retrieve it, but Wuya was a bit of a stereotype breaker herself. She was actually quite youthful in appearance, and in battle was almost as agile as Dashi was. Quick though Dashi was, he wasn't quite quick enough to stop the witch from getting a hold of the Wu as well. There was a tug of war, whereupon the hourglass began to glow.

Wuya blinked in surprise, though she still pulled against him, refusing to let go. "What trickery is this?"

Dashi didn't answer, instead staring intently at the Shen Gong Wu. Wuya followed his gaze as he looked up. The Sands of Time became intangible and floated upwards out of their grasp, high above them both. The ground shook as jagged cracks tore the earth apart, and the environment and scenery around them changed from that of a peaceful area in the mountains to that of outer space. Galaxies swirled, comets twirled, stars burned and planets turned. The odd meteoroid flew past.

"W-what is this?" said Wuya. "What have you done this time?"

"Ha! You fell for it!" he said, smirking, though secretly he had no idea what was going on. Yet another surprise Shen Gong Wu side-effect.

Wuya narrowed her eyes, clenching her fists in suspicious anger. "Please tell me you planned this. _Please_ tell me you know what you're doing."

"I know exactly what I'm doing," he responded smoothly, still grinning as he folded his arms. One thing he'd learned over the years was how not to show panic, even in the most dire of situations. As the de facto leader of the Xiaolin warriors it always fell to him to be the confident one, to be the one to always know everything about everything. A lot of the time he _did_ know, but there were times, like now, where you had to improvise, especially when Shen Gong Wu were involved.

"We both want this Wu, right? It sensed that, and decided we should have some sort of epic showdown of galactic proportions to decide who gets to keep it."

"It _sensed_ us?" She shook her head. "I swear, you make these things up as you go along."

"I'm insulted. I'm not making this up." He _was_ making it up, but it actually did seem like the best explanation. Sometimes it did feel like the Shen Gong Wu had minds of their own. He was really going to have to note down a list of all these side-effects on some kind of scroll or something. The Yin Yang Yo-Yos definitely needed a set of step-by-step instructions.

He paced slowly around on the invisible floor, absently chucking a small wooden object up and down with one hand, apparently testing which direction, if any, was down. "It's called a Xiaolin Showdown," he went on, "and whoever wins the Showdown gets to keep the Shen Gong Wu. It's testing us."

"Well, then it can declare me the winner of this little battle right away!"

She immediately fired blasts from her hands, trapping him within a web of green Heylin magic and causing him to drop what he'd been holding to the ground. There was a flash, and they were instantly back on solid ground, in the grounds of the temple. The Sands of Time floated into Wuya's hands.

"Well, well. Looks like I win," she said.

"W-what? No fair!" Dashi yelled, losing his composure for the first time. He glared at her. "You could have at least waited till I said, 'Go'! What kind of epic climatic showdown between good and evil was that, anyway? A crappy one, that's what!"

She chuckled. "Well, your Shen Gong Wu seems to think otherwise. You got in way over your head with this Shen Gong Wu, Dashi. You messed up."

"Not quite," he said. His eyes lit up mischievously as he grinned again, quite unperturbed despite being ensnared.

"Not quite?" she repeated, smiling a smug cat-smile. "Dashi, you're such a fool." She moved closer to him, walked two fingers up his left shoulder, and flicked him in the middle of his head. "I'm going to kill you and take all your Shen Gong Wu. I'll take much better care of them than you ever did. Any last words?"

"Actually, yes. You might want to take a look _down_."

"Down?"

Down, at Wuya's feet, was the object that Dashi had dropped: a wooden box.

A puzzle box.

The puzzle box snapped open, releasing its energy as a hazy lilac gas that surrounded her and completely immobilized her. She howled with rage as she realized that Dashi had known what he was doing all along: the Sands of Time had been a distraction even if the "Showdown" hadn't been part of the plan. As a last ditch effort, she fired lightning from her hands, hoping to break the box, but this had no effect on the mist, and she twisted uselessly as the magical mist turned her into a spirit form, after which the box sucked her inside… and snapped shut.

The Sands of Time dropped to the ground.

"Phew," said Dashi, now freed. That was a bit close, but... he'd managed it.

He sighed again as it sunk in. Wuya had been defeated! He'd managed to get close enough to Wuya to seal her away, hopefully for good. And now that she was sealed away, all her magic would be undone. All the golems she had created would vanish, and all the villages she'd taken over freed. It wouldn't be long before Chase and Guan would arrive to celebrate.

This was it, wasn't it?

He bent down to pick up the puzzle box and the Sands of Time. He noticed something new on the ground next to the Sands of Time, something that sparkled when the sunlight caught it. It was a piece of light-purple glass small enough to fit in the palm of his hand, a jagged scalene triangle with a V-shaped cut in its longest edge. He wasn't sure why, but it felt familiar somehow.

He touched it, and the whole world turned to black: to nothing.

"I see," he said.

* * *

In a completely different world, a young boy walked through sand, stopping just outside the door of a little cottage. After a moment's hesitation, he took his gnome hat off and sighed, combing through his blond hair in an expression of mild frustration.

He turned his head right round, taking in the glorious blues and greens of the bright sea in the distance, and then he backtracked along the fine sand. Walking a little way away from the house, he sat down on the sand, leaning comfortably against a palm tree as he took a mini-break. He didn't want to ruin the moment. It was a pleasant moment. It was a beautiful, sunny day that was neither too hot nor too cold, a mild breeze ruffled his unkempt hair, and he was on a beach, with nothing but the calming sound of the sea to listen to.

It was a perfect moment, in fact.

The next moment would be one where he stepped inside the house, and once he'd done that, he'd be the Hero again.

He frowned. The Hero stuff always baffled him. It wasn't because he was an idiot. He wasn't an idiot. Legendary Heroes were supposed to save the day. He knew this. They were supposed to traverse over great distances and smite villainous foes and slay dragons and defeat Great Evils in impressive battles.

He just didn't understand why _he_ always had to be the one saving the day. Couldn't someone else do it for once? He wished that he could take off his Hero title like his hat, and say, "Here you go!" to a passer-by, and run like the dickens.

And that was another thing: that damned hat. And the Hero's clothes. They were bloody ridiculous, that's what they were. The outfit was a tight green tunic with thick brown boots, along with _that damned sock of a hat_. It all looked like something out of a children's pantomime, but it was _traditional_. He had to wear the outfit, because he was the Hero, and this was what Heroes wore, even if the useless thing made him look like a green garden gnome with a severe chip on its shoulder.

Oh well. He supposed he should be more positive about the whole thing. After all, the Goddesses had chosen him. The advantage of being the Hero: the Hero of the story always won. All he needed now was the final power-up to beat Bellum - the Great Evil _du jour_ - so he could save the day yet again and get the heck out of here.

And he couldn't exactly give up right now, as much as he wanted to. He needed to save his friend from Bellum. Bellum was a demon monster with the ability to erase memories, and with terrible life-force draining powers that had turned his friend to stone. Definitely Great Evil material. He couldn't go back to his village and say, "I got as far as the big bad boss then gave up, left my best friend to rot and went home," could he? He'd never hear the end of it.

He put his hat back on, took a peek inside his tiny magical bag - the world's best example for the concept of hammerspace - and decided that it wasn't all bad. You did get to see some pretty amazing things while you were on your travels, if you were a Hero.

Powerful sword for slicing through skeleton knights and anything else that got in his way? Yep.

Bow and arrows to shoot Bellum's annoying Phantom minions in the back? Yep.

Cartoony bombs? Boomerang? Yep and yep.

Magical hourglass to protect his life-force from being drained? Yep.

Weird silver swirling hole appearing in the middle of the air?

_Hmm..._

POK!

Crotchety old man about to tell him where he went wrong? Yep, yep, yeppity yep.

"Link!"

Link took his green hat off again, this time rubbing the back of his head where it hurt. "I'd appreciate it if you didn't bash me on the head all the time, old man."

The old man was not much taller than Link, with thick, grey hair that almost completely covered his face, making him look like a mop head with eyes. He was dressed in a light summery shirt, and held in his right hand a long red staff with a conch on its top end, which he put to annoyingly good use every time he felt Link had screwed up.

"You were about to throw the Phantom Hourglass in there!" he said, gesturing to the magical sand timer in Link's raised hand. This hourglass was blue, and had yellow grains of sand inside.

"Yeah, because I thought that's what I was supposed to do. Y'know, receive mega power-up, use awesome powers to defeat terrible evil, save the princess-"

POK!

"Ow! Quit whacking me on the head, you old coot!"

"Not until you get some sense knocked into you, boy! That is not a power-up. That," the old man pointed to the silver circle in the air with his shell-staff, "is a tear in space and time."

"And you would know this because...?"

"Did you forget so soon, boy? Those grains of time inside the Hourglass - the Sands of Hours? They are my essence. I can sense time."

"_Well done you_."

The old man closed his eyes for a moment and pinched the bridge of his nose, hoping that this was all just a nightmare and he'd be waking up any minute now. "Where are the three Spirits?"

Link tried his best not to snort. The Spirits were tiny fairies that he found to be as annoying as mosquitoes, and equally as difficult to shake off, but very occasionally he did manage to get away from them. They were part of the reason for wanting his perfect moment all to himself.

"They're... around," he said.

The old man now slapped his forehead. "You idiot! You need them to defeat Bellum."

"Oh, yeah... Whoopsie."

"Why?" the old man shouted dramatically to the sky. "Why must you test me so?"

"Oh, c'mon. It's not that bad. They'll be along. I'll be fine in the meantime."

"Did you at least visit Zauz like I told you to?"

"Yeah, yeah, he forged a new blade from the rare metals. But..."

Link pulled out a long, metal blade from his tiny bag. He had received the blade from Zauz, a legendary blacksmith, and it was supposed to be a powerful sword, but it would have been a damn sight more useful if it hadn't been missing an important component.

"It doesn't have a hilt," he said. "How's a sword without a hilt supposed to beat Bellum?"

POK!

"Ow!"

"Come inside my house and I'll show you."

"You didn't have to hit me on the head."

"Yes I did."

They walked up the sand path to the old man's house, and the old man led Link inside. It was a modest house made of stone and wood, with just one main room, and only a couple of smaller ones leading off it. Looking around, Link could see a mattress in one corner on the stone floor, a chest of drawers in another corner, and a couple of shelves with tattered books and potion bottles above a cracked wall. In the middle of the room was a purple rug.

The old man took the metal blade and the hourglass from Link's hands, and walked onto the rug. He then stretched his arms, holding both objects up high. They floated into the air just above the man's head, spinning slowly round and round as magical energies stirred. They were receiving a power-up.

"The Phantom Blade, and the Phantom Hourglass. Pay attention, Link."

"I am paying attention."

"No, you're not. You're lighting a bomb next to my cracked wall to see if there's a treasure chest full of money in there."

Link turned round and stared at him with match in hand, unabashed. He said nothing.

"Do you actually go round looting people's houses? You do, don't you?"

Now Link did look embarrassed. He blew out the match. "Well... A Hero can't exactly save the world if his equipment is gonna fall to pieces right in the middle of battle."

"You don't need money! What you need is to listen to this!" On the word 'listen', the old man thwacked his staff on the back of Link's legs, tripping him up, and he crashed on his backside.

"OUCH! Okay, okay. Jeez."

Link crawled over to the middle of the room onto the rug, moving into a cross-legged position. He looked up at the two shining objects.

"Okay," said the old man. "The Phantom Blade and the Phantom Hourglass together make..."

They fused together.

"The Phantom Pain In The Ass."

POK!

"No! The Phantom Sword!" In a calmer voice, the old man added, "See, the Phantom Hourglass has formed the hilt for us."

"I can kill Bellum with it, then?"

"Presumably." The old man sighed. "It grants you the power to manipulate time. I wish it didn't. But it does."

"So now can I chuck it at the grey hole outside?"

"No! Well, yes. But I need to show you how to use it first. And you need to pay attention because if you don't it could mean destruction of the universe. Destruction of the universe may occur. It's quite possible that there will be destruction that will be universally everywhere, because it will be the _destruction of the universe. _The universe could be destroyed. Destruction. Of. The. Universe."

"Ye gods, I heard you the first time! I'm not that bloody dense."

"You could have fooled me!"

Link rolled his eyes and stood up. The Phantom Sword stopped glowing and fell slowly into his left hand.

"Time to do my Heroic thing, eh?"

The old man shook his head in despair. Of all the Heroes in all the worlds, in all the timelines and all the universes, why'd he have to end up with this one?


	3. Chapter 2: The Sands of Time

**Chapter 2: The Sands of Time**

* * *

In the original, unchanged timeline, the Xiaolin monk Dashi became known as the greatest Dragon that ever lived for his victory over Wuya, and his legacy lived on in the Xiaolin temple. The tradition of studying chi-powered martial arts and using them to combat the forces of darkness had been passed down, year after year, generation after generation, and now the task of keeping the world safe fell to four students: four Dragons-in-training named Omi, Kimiko, Raimundo and Clay.

Under the guidance of their teacher, Master Fung, each of the four youngsters were training hard to master their respective element. But for the first time in hundreds of years, Dashi's Shen Gong Wu had reactivated themselves after being dormant and hidden to the world at large, and so, unlike their Xiaolin predecessors, these four students also had the additional task of learning how to use Shen Gong Wu.

Learning how to use the Shen Gong Wu meant using them for the mundane as well as for the extraordinary, at least according to Master Fung, who'd sprung this little nugget of joy on them soon after they'd collected enough of the Shen Gong Wu to have two each, between them. This had elicited a groan from all but Omi, who insisted it was one of Master Fung's many lessons.

Raimundo had said: "There's no lesson here. He just wants the place clean, and Shen Gong Wu will do it faster."

To which Master Fung had replied: "Exactly."

Today, it was Omi who held the stopwatch high, the aim being to time how quickly they could get everything cleaned. Even Raimundo had to admit, there was a bit of merit to this: it had helped them work together, which probably _was_ the lesson. By now they were used to doing all the chores, even if no one really liked doing them, so with a bit of teamwork and some clever use of the Shen Gong Wu, they'd get everything done in no time.

"Stand on your marks," said Omi. "Set yourselves. Commence with chores! Gong Yi Tanpai!"

Omi was the shortest of the four, but he used the Third-Arm Sash Shen Gong Wu to stretch and reach places he wouldn't normally be able to reach. Meanwhile, although Clay was the tallest, he flew up and around with the levitating powers of the Jet Bootsu, to dust really high up where _no one_ would normally be able to reach. Kimiko was crouched near to the ground, stretching an arm with the Lotus Twister to take care of the low places.

Raimundo frowned at the dishes in the sink. How best to deal with these? Aha, the Shroud of Shadows. No one would ever know. He waved the blanket-like Shroud over the plates and cutlery, making them invisible.

"All done!" he said.

Omi poked his head around the doorway and raised an eyebrow, not happy that Raimundo was back to his usual habits of taking the easy way out. "Excuse me?"

"Hey, just because I'm not a Xiaolin apprentice, doesn't mean I should have to wash all your dirty dishes."

Kimiko rolled her eyes as she listened from outside the kitchen. Raimundo not making apprentice level was still a bit of a sore point, apparently. It was because of that that Raimundo had betrayed them and switched sides to the Heylin. He'd restored Wuya to full strength, though he'd made up for it by resealing her inside a second puzzle box, and was now back on the Xiaolin side again. Even so, Kimiko wasn't quite sure if Omi completely trusted him; it had only been a couple of days since Wuya had been resealed.

"C'mon, Raimundo," she said. "The sooner we finish our chores, the more time we have to hang."

Fortunately, Raimundo had since realised that he'd have to work to regain Omi's trust; he smiled a little as Omi made a confused remark about the idiom. Omi was probably the most egotistical, overbearing person he'd ever known… but he wouldn't have it any other way.

* * *

All was forgotten once the chores truly had been finished, the group of four deciding to meet in the training grounds outside the Xiaolin temple. Kimiko gently swung on one of the small hanging axes that they used in order to train, while Clay leaned against a wooden pole, arms crossed, and Raimundo sat, leaning against the same pole from the other side.

Omi held out the stopwatch to the others, pointing to their impressive time. "Ha!" he said. They'd beaten their record. For doing _chores_.

He sat down on the ground, cross-legged, frowning thoughtfully. He highly doubted that when Grandmaster Dashi had created the Shen Gong Wu fifteen hundred years ago, he'd meant for them to be used as aids for housekeeping. Was this all the monks could look forward to from now on?

"Now that we have mastered the art of battle, and Raimundo's trapped Wuya in the puzzle box, perhaps chores will be the only use we'll have for the Shen Gong Wu," he said a little sadly.

Clay nodded, pulling on his cowboy hat a little. "It sure was a lot more fun when we had someone to fight against."

"Still waters may blanket the greatest of unseen hazards," said Master Fung, and they all turned to look at him. He had a way of approaching without anyone noticing, and he always did it whenever it seemed important too. No one quite knew how he did this.

"There he goes again," said Raimundo, resisting the urge to roll his eyes. He'd never quite bought into the 'wise old Kung Fu master' routine. "Can someone get me a translator?"

In response, Master Fung held up the Shroud of Shadows, completely rolled up; he unrolled it and waved it, to reveal all the dishes that Raimundo hadn't cleaned.

Raimundo now looked sheepish. "Oh! So that's where those dishes went..."

Master Fung handed the pile of dishes over to him. "Overconfidence can be as dangerous as a lack of confidence."

"C'mon," said Kimiko, "we kicked evil's butt! Why can't we just kick back for a while?"

"No time for rest!" said another voice. "We've got Shen Gong Wu to find!"

In complete contrast to Master Fung's arrival, Dojo rushed excitedly onto the scene, Shen Gong Wu scroll at the ready. Dojo was a green Chinese dragon capable of changing his form to any size or shape, but he was also a very _noisy_ Chinese dragon and a lot of the time what he shape-shifted into was trouble. Bringing him on a stealth mission was a definite no-no, unless you were deliberately trying to fail.

The news of a fresh Shen Gong Wu immediately perked everyone up, and they stared at Dojo with baited breath. At least the Shen Gong Wu were still becoming active, despite Wuya being trapped once more.

"It's a double-whammy," he continued, almost out of breath. "The Silver Manta Ray and… the Sands of Time."

"The Sands of Time," Master Fung repeated. "Hmm..."

"Is something the matter?" Omi asked.

"You should hurry and bring back the Sands of Time as quickly as possible," he said.

"Awesome! Let's get going!" Raimundo cried, ready for some action. He looked down at the plates in his hands. "Oh, _darn_," he said in mock disappointment. "Now I won't have time to finish my dishes."

Master Fung smiled. "They will be here when you get back."

Raimundo growled to himself, so angry that he accidentally dropped them all with a loud _crash_. He slapped his forehead. Now he'd need to replace them. But at least that could wait until after the excursion for a new Shen Gong Wu. With any luck, it would be one that he could use.

* * *

"The Sands of Time," said Dojo excitedly, descending into a clearing, "gives you the ability to travel through time. It also makes a great paperweight!"

Omi and Raimundo leapt off Dojo's back. Clay and Kimiko were not with them; they had been left behind in a dense, muggy jungle to find the Silver Manta Ray.

"It says here that messing with the timeline can have catastrophic consequences," Raimundo said, reading from the Shen Gong Wu scroll. The magic scroll was Dashi's catalogue of all the various Wu and their powers, and Raimundo watched as a cartoon man on the scroll used the Sands of Time, and then a picture of an exploding Earth appeared. "Like, complete destruction of the universe consequences."

"Well, yeah, there's that too," said Dojo, changing size and curling around Omi's shoulders. "But everyone knows that. Goes without saying, really."

"Of _course_," Raimundo commented sarcastically as he walked onto a path that lead away from the clearing. "Where would the fun be if we didn't have the threat of the end of the world hanging over us?"

The path was dry and crunchy, with soil and loose bits of leaves everywhere, and was flanked on both sides by ferns, birch, beech and oak trees, and other thick vegetation. Raimundo moved leaves and branches out of the way with the Third-Arm Sash, searching through the thick deciduous forest for any signs of a mystical hourglass. He came down a slight hill, at the bottom of which was a 4-way junction.

"We shouldn't get too cocky," said Dojo. "Remember what Master Fung said. Jack's probably still gonna be as persistent as ever, even without Wuya to egg him on."

"Oh, _Jack_," said Omi dismissively, stepping through some bracken and checking for potential dangers in any tree he passed. He had an irrational fear of squirrels. "We hardly need to concern ourselves with him."

"The guy may be a grade-A goofball," Raimundo said from where he stood, "but could you imagine what might happen if he gets his hands on it? That's got destruction of the world written all over it."

"I suppose you are right. The important thing is to get the Sands of Time." Omi ran to join Raimundo down the small hill, at the junction.

* * *

They soon found the Sands of Time on top of a rocky ledge, in a smaller clearing in the forest. Raimundo used the Third-Arm Sash to grab the hourglass, pulling it down to where he stood. And who should hurtle past, just missing the Sands of Time? It was Jack Spicer.

With his black trenchcoat, bright red hair, and spirally goggles atop his forehead, he was a difficult person to miss. He had an affinity with mechanics, and usually had a contraption or two up his sleeve. He hovered in the air with a portable helicopter pack on his back, which whirled its rotors away, and he shouted orders to his assembled group of robots.

_Ah_, thought Omi. _Jack is here_. Despite what he'd said to Raimundo and Dojo earlier, he was rather pleased that Jack had turned up.

Fifteen hundred years ago, Dashi had sealed Wuya away inside the first puzzle box, after which he had deactivated the Shen Gong Wu. But the race for the Shen Gong Wu had begun anew in the present day when Jack had opened that puzzle box and released the spirit of Wuya. Once dormant for many hundreds of years, the Shen Gong Wu had sensed Wuya's presence and once again taken on a new life of their own. Jack had joined forces with Wuya's ghostly form, going up against the Xiaolin warriors, and taking part in many Xiaolin Showdowns for the active Shen Gong Wu along the way.

When Wuya had been fully restored by Raimundo, Jack and the other three Xiaolin warriors had been forced to work together, fighting against Wuya in order to trap her inside the second puzzle box. But even so, Jack's presence here in the forest meant that he still fully intended to pursue his goal for world domination, albeit without Wuya this time, and the Shen Gong Wu were a means to accomplish that.

This was fine with Omi, though. The task of collecting Shen Gong Wu seemed to _need_ an opposing force, even if it was someone as useless and cowardly as Jack. It was possible that the Wu could revert to their previous state and become inactive without someone on the other side trying to get them as well, and Omi didn't want that. Despite the troubles and dangers that the Shen Gong Wu sometimes brought, things would definitely become dull and boring without them around to liven the day up. Daily chores indeed!

It certainly wasn't dull and boring now, for three very important reasons:

1) The robots had completely surrounded the two Xiaolin warriors.

2) Raimundo was a natural show-off.

3) Omi had a big ego.

If you combined the three together, it wasn't difficult to imagine the entire scene becoming a jumbled melee mess, with bits of robot arms and legs flying everywhere, laser beams firing in haphazard directions, and both guys trying to outdo each other in the _how many robots can you defeat before Jack runs out_ department.

There came a silence, where all that surrounded the two monks were broken robot parts, and now Raimundo and Omi took part in a _who can adopt the coolest battle stance_ competition.

One final robot, one that they'd missed, emerged from the junk and charged rather recklessly into Raimundo's back, causing him to drop the Sands of Time. It landed on the floor with a resounding _ching!_ but didn't break, instead rolling harmlessly along the ground, down a slight incline. Dashi had created the Shen Gong Wu to last, it seemed.

Raimundo immediately righted himself and turned around, shooting a fist to smash the robot that had pushed him over, but he was surprised, and he was surprised twice. He was surprised because the robot put up a palm to effectively block the strike, and he was surprised to find it was, in fact, Jack staring back triumphantly with a raised palm and a sly smirk on his face.

"What?" said Raimundo. "Since when could _you_ fight?"

Jack grinned, but didn't say anything, and he snapped his fingers.

More robots appeared. It was time for round two, and, rather unusually, Jack was taking part this time. He was giving Raimundo a hard time - Raimundo was finding it impossible to even touch the guy. And then, as Omi darted in between laser beams and robots in order to retrieve the Sands of Time, which was still rolling along the floor, he noticed movement out of the corner of his eye. It was _Jack_.

"Huh?" said Omi. He looked back and forth between the Jack attacking Raimundo and the Jack hovering towards him, getting closer to the Sands of Time. "Two Jacks?"

"This one's gotta be a robot," Raimundo said, dodging a wild flurry of punches that was humanly impossible from his Jack. "There's no way Jack is _this_ good." Proving his point, the robot Jack grabbed Raimundo's arm and threw him over its shoulder, slamming him hard into the rock face.

"Ouch," said Dojo, wincing from the sidelines. "I felt that."

He watched as Omi made a dash for the real Jack. The fake Robo-Jack tried to intercept but was sent away hard with a solid _crack!_ into the cliff face by a well-timed Fist of Tebigong. It was not destroyed but it was out of action and, though he was still in a bit of pain, Raimundo felt suitably avenged and got up just to blow a raspberry at the stricken robot.

Still running, Omi took a huge leap to grab the Sands of Time, just as Jack scooped it up and flew higher with it. There was a midair tug-of-war, as Jack struggled to force Omi to let go, neither wanting to yield to the other.

"Ugh," said Jack. He lowered himself, and Omi, to the ground, carrying an annoyed, bored expression. The Sands of Time was shining brightly; a stalemate like this could only be resolved by a Xiaolin Showdown. "What's the challenge?"

"Hmm," said Omi, looking around. "The first person to reach the Sands of Time wins?"

"Sure, whatever. I wager the Tangle Web Comb."

"And I shall wager the Lotus Twister."

"Got it. Let's go already."

Just like fifteen hundred years ago, the Sands of Time seemed to sense the wishes of the two humans fighting over it, and through Xiaolin magic it forced a temporary but rather dramatic change in scenery, setting the stage for the two combatants. The ground rumbled as the small cliff expanded, growing to enormously high proportions. The hourglass floated to the top, where it waited expectantly for the first person to reach the top and claim ownership over its powers.

"Uh…" Jack said, arcing his neck upwards. "Don't tell me we have to go all the way up there?"

Omi smirked. "Are you afraid, Jack Spicer?"

"Ha! You wish. Gong Yi Tanpai!"

They both scrambled to the rock face and began to climb. Both were focusing on how to get themselves up rather than what on the other person was doing. It was thus pretty even for the first couple of minutes, until Jack paused momentarily, and turned sideways to fire the Tangle Web Comb. Omi panicked, but only for a moment. He let go to slip down the rock face a little, narrowly avoiding the long magical hairs that the Comb shot out. Jack then seemed to remember that he could fly, and with a taunting sneer, he activated his heli-pack and raced upwards.

But Omi had come up with an idea of his own. A bit of rock was sticking out, and he grabbed onto it with both hands. Using the powers of the Lotus Twister, he stretched his arms, pulling downwards, and let go, using the force to propel himself upwards like a rubber band. He whizzed past Jack, taking him by surprise, and then stretched again, zooming upwards for the remaining distance to the end.

The rocky cliff immediately transformed to its much smaller size as if nothing had happened, leaving behind a triumphant Omi holding up the Sands of Time and a sullen Jack sulking, sitting cross-legged with crossed arms, on the ground.

"Way to go, Omi!" Raimundo cried, patting him on the shoulders as Jack finally gave up and flew away irritably with his robots. "We've got a time-travelling Wu! Think how many dishes I can get rid of with this!"

Omi glared up at his friend. "Raimundo!"

"What? Just… thinking out loud. That's all."

"Did you not listen to yourself when you were reading the ancient scroll? We cannot use the Sands of Time for mere _chores_! We should only use it when we really need to."

"Well, okay. Maybe just once, then, to stop myself breaking them."

"But," said Dojo, scratching his dragon's beard, "if you go back in time and somehow stop yourself from breaking them, then they won't be broken any more, which means you won't need to go back in time and stop yourself from breaking them, which means you _will_ break them, which means you _won't_ break them... uh..."

"And we did not see you try to stop yourself, when we were in the training ground," said Omi, picking up the fight. "That means it was not supposed to happen."

"Okay, okay, I get it," said Raimundo grumpily, waving an arm in frustration. "No time paradoxes allowed. The plates need to stay broken..." He sighed. "Unfortunately..."

* * *

"We _are_ only watching the important parts of this timeline, right?" said voice two, sounding terrified at the prospect of receiving 'no' for an answer.

"Yes," said voice three, in a tone that indicated that it felt like it was dealing with a couple of children. "We're even going at a faster speed in here than outside so that you don't miss anything outside. But we have to stay on the current one, we can't go any faster or skip to the next one. As I'm sure you're aware."

"But what exactly are we looking out for?" said voice one. This didn't count as complaining; it was just a little... check.

"You'll know when you see it," said voice three patiently.

"Or _you'll_ know it when we see it," corrected voice two.

"Why don't you just sit tight and pay attention?" said voice three. "We might miss something."

"_Fine_," said voice two shortly.

* * *

The Hero Link walked down the beach, marching to the floating silver hole with gusto. Now that the old man had taught him how to use the sword, that space-time tear wouldn't know what hit it! He raised the Phantom Sword above his head...

* * *

High above the noisy, bustling city, the griffin's egg fell off the hoverboard, down and down, heading towards the children's playpen far below on the ground. The red dragon grabbed his dog companion from the hoverboard, and folded back his leathery wings, diving down through the air, keen to rescue the egg. Suddenly, a strange, silver hole in the air appeared directly underneath the egg before the dragon could change course, and he inadvertently followed the egg inside.

The swirling hole closed.


	4. Chapter 3: The Shard of Lightning

**Chapter 3: The Shard of Lightning**

* * *

While Omi and Raimundo were celebrating their win, Clay and Kimiko were following a trail through the jungle, on the lookout for the second of the Shen Gong Wu that had become active. The Silver Manta Ray wasn't far - probably at the end of the trail, Dojo had said. They reached the end, where the path opened out into a clearing. The sun shone brightly through here, the rays feeling strong and prickly on the skin.

"Phew!" said Clay, taking off his cowboy hat briefly to wipe off some sweat.

"Yeah, sure is hot," Kimiko agreed. "Glad I wore sunglasses." She was kitted out in khaki shorts, and today her hair was orange. "I wonder if Jack will show up," she said.

"Even he can't be in two places at once," said Clay. "Not without becoming really dumb like Omi did, anyway."

"Yeah, but the last time more than one Wu went active at once we had to fight Tubbimura and -"

_Whump!_

The cat-costumed form known as Katnappé landed almost directly in front of them.

"Speak of the devil," muttered Clay.

Katnappé was an acquaintance of Jack Spicer's. Clay wasn't sure what the relation between the two so-called villains was, though they didn't seem to like each other much, even when they were on the same side. Katnappé tended to think smaller than Jack. She was a petty thief, only interested in materialistic gain, and she didn't care a whit about ruling the world. But the flip side was that she also tended to be a lot more competent than Jack. She'd beaten both Kimiko and Omi in Xiaolin Showdowns on separate occasions, and without resorting to cheating as Jack so often did.

On the other hand, both Clay and Kimiko had grown stronger since then, too. Compared to a fully-powered Wuya, Katnappé was small fry.

"Well, well," said Kimiko, giving the cat burglar a haughty look. "Look what the cat-nappé dragged in."

Katnappé bared her teeth and hissed, swiping at the air with her claws. "Me-ow!"

Clay had never quite understood the rivalry between the two girls, but sometimes he thought they were both as bad as each other, if only because it seemed to bring out the awful cat puns. His eyes widened as a familiar spirit hovered into view, from behind Katnappé: the purple, ghostly form of Wuya, archenemy of Grandmaster Dashi.

"Wuya?" Clay exclaimed.

"You didn't think I'd stay in that box forever, did you?" she said.

"Another fifteen hundred years would have been nice," he responded, frowning. Katnappé must have found the second puzzle box that Raimundo used to seal Wuya away. Clay cursed lightly to himself. They should have been more careful about that, really. No wonder the Shen Gong Wu were still becoming active.

Katnappé opened her rucksack, revealing several red-eyed, rabid kittens that leapt out, ready to scratch and bite anything that got in their way.

"Ack!" said Kimiko, getting the full brunt of the kitten attack. She twisted and turned, struggling to get the hissing bundles of fur off her. Katnappé took advantage of the distraction and ran ahead, climbing straight up a tree at the edge of the clearing. Through the kittens' flying claws and fur, both Xiaolin warriors saw why. In that tree's branches, a black and silver metallic object glistened in the sun. It was the shape of a manta ray.

"Dang-blasted cats!" said Clay. "I'm more of a dog person." He chucked the two kittens that had gone for him in the bushes, and ran towards the tree, activating the Two-Ton Tunic.

Now, Clay had a unique sense of chivalry. He wouldn't hit a girl, but he'd since added a hidden rule which stated: "unless it's Katnappé". In this case, though, he didn't technically hit her; he utilised the force of the protective armour and slammed into the tree trunk, and Katnappé came crashing down. He held out both hands, and the Silver Manta Ray neatly fell into them.

Beginning to lose her patience, Kimiko performed the latest move she'd perfected - the Judalet Flip, where she somersaulted into a spinning ball of fire, to force the remaining kittens off her. She then immediately sent the kittens flying all the way across the clearing with a powerful gust courtesy of the Sword of the Storm. The kittens would be back, but she and Clay would be gone by then.

Clay threw the Silver Manta Ray out into the open space, where it transformed into a futuristic jet-plane that resembled one of Jack's many creations. Katnappé recovered and stood up, glaring at Kimiko and Clay as they quickly climbed inside. The cat burglar sprinted nimbly towards them, but it was too late. The plane rose high up, out of her reach.

"Later, _Katnappé_," said Kimiko tauntingly, and, with Clay at the helm, they flew off. Mission accomplished!

* * *

Down on the ground, Wuya was a floating balloon of frustration, just seconds away from popping. It was so infuriating, being reduced to nothing but a purple ghost with a freaky floating red mask for a head. After Jack had released her from the first puzzle box, she had often thought that turning her into this _thing_ was Dashi's idea of a cruel joke. She couldn't do anything in this form. She couldn't touch anything, or make any objects move, like you would think a ghost could. She couldn't even possess anybody. All she could do was watch helplessly and shout angrily while everyone else around her screwed up.

"Arrgh! You're useless!" she hissed at Katnappé. "It's bad enough you decided to go for _this_ Shen Gong Wu instead of the Sands of Time, but you went and lost this one, as well!"

"Shut it, you old hag! I'm outta here. I _quit_." With that, Katnappé picked up her rucksack, and trekked off to look for her crazed kittens.

_That could have gone better,_ Wuya thought, folding her ghostly arms. It had been a bad idea to team up with Katnappé anyway; all Katnappé was interested in if it didn't involve cats was money. Wuya supposed she was better off with Jack, at least to start off with. This was one of the few occasions where being a ghost came in handy; she'd be able to materialise at Jack's house without having to bother with magic to travel all that way. Jack very likely wouldn't take her back, but she'd try anyway. If there was one thing Wuya was good at, it was finding an opportunity.

* * *

"No," said Jack, scowling at the ghost-witch. They were both in his basement lab. He was a little surprised to see her, but then again he didn't remember what had happened to the puzzle box that Raimundo had used to trap her inside.

"C'mon, Jack," she said. "You need me."

"No, I don't." He purposely turned his back and grabbed a spanner, mending his broken down Parrot-bot. It doubled as a lozenge dispenser, and right now he really needed a lozenge. Proclaiming to the world how evil he was, in such a loud voice, took its toll on his throat from time to time. "I can find the Shen Gong Wu without you. Go away."

To his annoyance, Wuya grinned. "Did you get the Sands of Time? I bet you _didn't_."

He shrugged. "Yeah, so what? It's not the end of the world."

"_So_ _what_? You idiot! You don't even know what it does, do you?"

This was true. His Shen Gong Wu detecting device didn't tell him the powers of a Shen Gong Wu, only its location.

"It freezes time," he guessed.

Wuya's grin became even larger.

"Fine, whatever," he said shortly, turning back to his robot. "I don't care what it does."

"Jack," she said, losing the smile. "Try to understand. I was mad because you turned me away before."

Well, of course he'd turned her away! He had bent over backwards getting the blasted Shen Gong Wu to create the demon Mala Mala Jong out of them, and Wuya had repaid him by ordering it to smash him into his own bookcase. That hadn't been fun. Never mind the entire incident with Raimundo.

"That was only because you betrayed me first! Why should I trust you?"

She blinked, and looked away. Then, after a thoughtful pause, she turned her gaze back to him, seeming to have decided something. "The Sands of Time gives you the power to travel through time," she said quietly.

"A time-travelling Wu?" he exclaimed.

"Yes... I suppose I'll have to find someone else to get it." She turned back around, starting to float away.

Against all better judgement, Jack called after her. "Wait. There aren't any hidden side effects to this one, is there?"

"There might be..." she said enigmatically.

Jack sighed. "Okay. You can stay... But no eating any of my pudding cups!"

"For the last time, that wasn't me! I can't eat!"

* * *

As it turned out, the Sands of Time were put to a much better use than chores: the collection of other Shen Gong Wu. The way to avoid time paradoxes was to use the invisibility powers of the Shroud of Shadows as well; it wasn't really a paradox if no one had _seen_ you arriving in the past. So one person would go back in time, invisibly, and cause Jack, for example, to trip up. The warriors of the past would get away with the Wu, only for one of them to go back in time to do the tripping.

In this way, several new Shen Gong Wu were collected by the Xiaolin warriors. Even Wuya was unable to give much assistance to Jack, though the more times they were defeated, the more they began to suspect that the Sands of Time was somehow involved. Master Fung gave a stern warning not to use the Sands of Time unless absolutely necessary, but Raimundo reassured him that they were only using it to travel back in minutes, and that they wouldn't use them to travel back or forwards for any longer than that.

It came as a surprise, then, that one day Jack had retrieved a Shen Gong Wu first. At a small sea harbour that was flanked on one side by a large hill, Jack and Wuya faced the four Xiaolin monks amidst the sounds of seagulls and boat bells and fishermen.

Raimundo was the first to notice the odd clock-shaped robot standing next to Jack. It was short and round, had little stubby hands sticking out at angles on top on its body in such a way that they looked like its ears; a couple of longer arms were attached to the side of the body with at least six watches on each arm; the body _was_ a clock, that is, a clock face complete with moving minute and hour hands; and its feet were wooden blocks. Its general appearance was that of a wind-up toy, except it was missing a twisty knob on its back.

"Wow," said Raimundo, shaking his head. This was ridiculous, even for Jack. "What are you calling this one, Jack? The Clock-bot? Real original!"

Jack huffed in annoyance. He was a stickler for people getting the names of his creations right. "Time-bot, Time-bot! Get it right."

Clay sighed as he connected the dots. "Ya didn't make a time machine robot, did ya? Because going by how well that other time doo-hickey of yours went…"

"This is an even better version!" Jack whined in protest. "I've fixed the problems with the previous one, so there!"

"Being able to return to one's own time…?" Omi suggested, with narrowed eyes. The last time Jack had built a time machine, he had forgotten to include a way of getting the person back once they'd entered it, and he had accidentally stranded Omi in the past.

Omi held the Sands of Time tighter. Two could play this time travel game.

"Shut up," Jack snapped. "I got here before you guys, didn't I? Now we're even Stevens!"

"No way are we even," Raimundo smirked, looking ready to use the Serpent's Tail.

"Ready to get your butt kicked for the umpteenth time?" Kimiko added, also settling into a battle stance.

"No, not really," Jack returned lazily, holding up the newly revealed Shen Gong Wu high above his head with his right hand, the other hand on the Time-bot's head. Wuya ducked into Jack's body to avoid the effects of the Wu as he called out: "Shard of Lightning!"

The blue orb flashed with a bolt of electricity, forcing Time to slow to a crawl, and the Xiaolin monks froze in place.

Time was getting fed up of this, really.

* * *

A world of nothing wasn't _too_ bad, Dashi decided. At least nothing could go wrong. But then again, nothing could go _right_, either. This was the kind of nothing that signified a collapsed universe, which meant that nothing would ever happen at all. He didn't know why he was happening, why he was breathing, and alive, in Nothingness. The Sands of Time conferred a degree of protection on its holder during a big disaster like this, but he didn't have it any more. It had vanished, along with Wuya's puzzle box, though he still had the triangular glass fragment.

Very odd indeed.

He'd only just beaten Wuya as well. So much for relaxing for a while...

Fortunately, he was only in Nothingness for the best part of two minutes, before the piece of purple glass teleported him out of Nothingness and into what looked like the completed Xiaolin temple.

_Completed_.

Oh dear. Completed without him.

Yep, there was something screwy going on here, and he was pretty sure it was a timeline related issue. He couldn't tell how much time had passed, but, also rather fortuitously, Dojo was curled up, snoozing on the floor. Thank goodness for the longevity of magical dragons, because no matter how many years had passed, Dojo would still be Dojo.

Hopefully.

"Hey, Dojo." Dashi bent down and nudged said magical dragon on the snout.

"Zzt–! What-what? Eh? Dashi? What… I thought you'd left to chase… um, Chase?"

_Chase Chase?_

"Why? What's he done?"

"What's he done? _What's he __done__?_ Have you been sniffing the Woozy Shooter gas again? He's drunk the Lao Mang Long soup, that's what he's gone and done! He tried to eat me! He-!"

Dashi placed both hands over Dojo's snout and forced his mouth shut. "Dojo. I'm currently experiencing a bit of temporal displacement."

"Oh," he said in a muffled voice, his snout still clamped, "that old thing."

"So, please, do not tell me any more, lest you start up some kind of time paradox."

"Right."

"Good." Dashi let go, and he stood up, holding the piece of glass in a loose fist. "Now, let me ask you this: how long has it been since Wuya was defeated?"

"Hmm, let's see now. About six months?"

"Six months, huh?"

Suddenly, the piece of glass floated up, out of Dashi's hand, and fired a beam of purple light straight up, high in the sky. The beam kept going up, until it abruptly changed direction and made a sharp ninety-degree turn to go horizontally, as if it had hit an invisible mirror in mid-air that had changed its trajectory.

Dashi tried pulling the piece out of the air to see what would happen. The purple glass piece easily moved, but the beam of light remained stubbornly in place, even though its source had been removed.

"What do you make of all this, Dojo?"

"Me?" He sounded surprised at being asked. He scratched his chin. "Well, it… it feels like a Shen Gong Wu, really, and yet… not like a Shen Gong Wu. There's some kind of weird static energy inside it. Like one of Wuya's lightning blasts."

"In that case, let's follow it and see where it goes."

"That light?"

"It's doing all this for a reason. I don't want to risk leaving it as it is in case it damages the timeline. I shouldn't be here, remember." _I wonder if Wuya did something?_ he added to himself.

"Well," said Dojo, growing to his huge size, "nothing like a good mystery to take one's mind off things. Buckle up!"

"One minute," said Dashi, and he bent down, picking up a pebble with his other hand and holding it out in his palm. Moments later, another puzzle box appeared in his hand.

"What's that for?"

"Just in case," said Dashi.

Following the beam of light didn't take long at all. After a couple of minutes, the line of light made a sharp right-angle turn downwards. As Dojo landed, Dashi could see what the beam of light was "pointing" to: another piece of glass.

Dashi bent down to pick it up, and the world turned not to black, but to _yellow_.

"Well, _damn_," said Dashi.

* * *

In the present day, the effects of the Shard of Lightning wore off, and time went back to its normal speed.

Actually, for the Xiaolin monks it felt more as though time had been abruptly skipped forward, like skipping to the next scene or chapter marker on a DVD – one second Jack had been there with them, in the noisy harbour, the next he had completely vanished. No one could remember what had happened during the interim.

"Darn," said Raimundo, "he got away!"

"But…" said Omi slowly. He stared at the ground, where the Sands of Time lay on its side. "Look."

"Huh," said Kimiko. "I wonder why he didn't take that one? Out of all the Wu here, you'd think that one would be the one he'd definitely grab."

"I've still got the Golden Tiger Claws," Clay added, looking suitably confused. Raimundo and Kimiko checked: they still had their Wu as well. It was all rather odd, frankly. What had happened while they'd been frozen?

Omi picked the Sands of Time up with some unease, as they'd been in his hands only a moment ago, he didn't remember dropping them. How much time had Jack had, he wondered? Only as long as the flash of lightning? How long was that?

"One of us could try to go back in time," Raimundo suggested. "See what happened."

"I don't think that's going to work this time," said Kimiko. "Jack's got a time machine too. He'll just use it to stop us from stopping him. Then we'll try to stop him stopping us stopping him, then he'll stop us stopping him stopping us stopping... erm, well, it'll be a never-ending cycle, anyway. Unless we break his time machine robot, but what's to stop him from building another one? Besides, now he's got the Shard of Lightning, he could just freeze time."

"What should we do then?" said Raimundo. "We're trying to avoid paradoxes, aren't we? 'The fate of the universe depends upon it', and whatnot."

"Just continue as normal, I reckon," said Clay. "With any luck, the same kind o' reasoning'll stop Jack from using his time machine like we were using the Sands of Time."

"Jack was right, then," said Raimundo glumly. "Even Stevens."

"We do not need the Sands of Time to beat Jack Spicer!" said Omi, who, out of the four, had liked using the time travel in this way the least. It had been a bit underhanded, and he'd seen it as cheating. The honourable way to get a Shen Gong Wu would be to face your opponent and have a proper Xiaolin Showdown.

"Probably not," said Kimiko, "but we'd just better hope that Jack doesn't do something completely moronic to the timeline..."

* * *

Funnily enough, at his house, Jack was thinking the same thing. Not that he was a moron, but he was beginning to wonder whether he had pushed time just a _little _too hard. Well, it was the Xiaolin Dragons' fault, they forced him to do it!

He sagged.

_So tired._

He stared at his Time-bot, which, on their return to his home, had gone _phut_. He didn't know why it had suddenly stopped working, but he could easily find out.

"I told you your robots were useless," said Wuya.

"Shut up," said Jack, unscrewing the robot's back compartment to retrieve a small black box. He placed the box on one of his tables, then attached a wire from it to his computer.

"What _are_ you doing?" Wuya asked, never really at home with modern technology, and even less at home with Jack's robotic inventions.

Jack sighed. "Look. Time gives off waves, right? Every event, every decision that's made, every cause and effect, it gives of a sort of... temporal signature. My Time-bot was recording them. I'm going to see if it'll give me some sort of clue as to why it's suddenly malfunctioned."

He typed on the keyboard, waiting for the computer to import the data from the robot, then he created waveforms and graphs, and then ran some calculations and extrapolations.

"Well, _crap_," Jack snarled.

"What?" said Wuya. Obviously he could see something in the graphs that she couldn't.

"The universe is coming to an end."

"What? Are you sure?"

"Of course I'm sure!"

"It just strikes me as unusually competent on your part, to be able to know for sure..."

"Listen, I don't ask you about how you can sense Shen Gong Wu or take over the world in minutes with your magic. It's the same with me and robots and temporal mechanics. I just know, okay?"

"Except most of the time your robots don't really work."

"Look! Time does not exist. Or, it will not exist. In sixteen hours, thirty-three minutes and -" he glanced at his computer's monitor "- fifty-two seconds' time, and counting - time itself... breaks down. Well, technically what's going to happen is that the laws of physics are going to break down and matter and energy and anything made up of either will be squeezed together tightly into a tiny particle-sized ball of non-existence. Everything collapses, do you understand? This isn't something I'm guessing. It _will_ happen. It's like I'm using the Crystal Glasses to see into the future. I can see it happening in these graphs, too, I'm just using a different way."

There was a moment where Wuya's thoughts appeared to be wrestling with themselves as she decided what to say next. He was so certain...

"What can we do?" she said eventually.

"Sixteen hours isn't long," he said, yawning. "I'm going to need more than that to repair the Time-bot."

"The Xiaolin warriors still have the Sands of Time," Wuya reminded him.

"Yeah, but they're never going to believe us," said Jack wearily, eyelids drooping. "We might need to..."

Jack slumped over his computer desk and fell asleep.

Idiot boy! He was harping on about the end of the universe, and here he was taking a nap! What a buffoon! Wuya tried everything to wake Jack up, but nothing would rouse him from his slumber.

Jack slept on into the night.

He dreamed of the past.

Memories.

And fire. Cold, and fog. Confusion. Colours. Shapes.

Memories...


	5. Chapter 4: The Puzzle Master

**Chapter 4: The Puzzle Master**

* * *

_At least_, thought Dashi. _At least_. All the _at leasts_ in the world were not going to fix the fact that he was completely screwed, but _at least_.

He wasn't stuck in Nothingness this time.

And that was the problem.

He was in another world.

The sky was dark, and he was standing on a paved street, fairly well lit by lamp-posts and buildings alike; he seemed to be in a shopping or hotel district. Market stall carts were in the middle of the small paved road, with wares of paintings and pots and pans and jewellery and lucky charms, and there were antique shops dotted along this section of road, displaying their prized vases and dolls and trinkets in the windows.

However, there was a dreary feel to the place, as if there was some kind of dark secret underneath all those bright lights. Perhaps it was the fact that there didn't seem to be any people manning the carts or the shops. Or perhaps it was the little girl who stood staring into nothingness, eyes as blank as the wall behind her.

There was also the fact that the street had sort of... sprung up out of nowhere, or through some kind of hazy yellow gas. There was a constant feeling of aware... drunkenness, like a cloud was fogging over his mind. Was it a side-effect of travelling through space-time? Or was it just this place? Dashi wasn't sure. He could feel it was a different world, the alignment of elements just ever so slightly different, but that was all he could tell without doing some more in-depth investigating.

Still, at least the Dojo from the previous time jump was with him, confirming that he wasn't going completely mad. And there were those two words again, the phrase that people used when they knew beyond all hope that everything was well and truly buggered, but they said it to themselves anyway, and Dashi clung to it like a lifeline in a sea of madness. The knowledge that things could only get worse was probably the only thing keeping him sane.

_Because there's no point in being glum before anything's actually happened_, he decided, rubbing his hands and walking up to the nearest stall, looking at himself in a large, golden mirror. _I can start panicking when I figure out what's going on._

"Hey, Dojo," he said.

"Yeah..."

"Do you remember what happened when I first created the Sands of Time?"

Dojo nodded. "It did all that crazy stuff and teleported us to different worlds and times. And then there was that weird energy behind that even weirder door." He blinked. "You think that's what's happening now? We're jumping across time and space?"

"Yes, but this time I'm not sure what's causing it. Somewhere in between jumps I lost the Sands of Time."

"...The Sands of Time in the future, then?" Dojo ventured. "Someone using it in the future?"

"Possibly, but then why would it keep affecting me? Why not whoever's got it in the future?"

"Uh," said Dojo, scratching his head. In the mirror, he watched as a severe frown come across Dashi's face.

Several possibilities had entered Dashi's mind. Sometime in the near future, he'd been teleported to the far future and was accidentally tampering with the timeline; someone _else_ in the future was purposely tampering with the timeline; someone in the past was accidentally on purpose tampering with the timeline; the timeline was tampering with the timeline...

"Excuse me, sir," said Dojo politely. He sounded like he hadn't really wanted to interrupt and was only doing so out of a severe necessity. He also sounded quite... posh.

Dashi didn't even turn around, still deep in thoughts about various depressing outcomes of the future. Or past. "You've got a very British accent," he said absently.

"You've got a very bald head!" said another voice, and this time Dashi turned round.

It was a boy, about ten or eleven years old, wearing a school uniform consisting of a light blue V-neck jumper, grey-brown shorts, long white socks and a flat blue cap, and carrying a brown satchel on his left shoulder. He had an indignant look on his face, eyes staring fierce defiance at Dashi.

"Now, now, Luke. Remember your manners." This was the first voice, which belonged to a brown-haired gentleman in his late twenties or early thirties, dressed in a black jacket, black trousers and an orange jumper, and with the largest top hat you ever did see. He had with him a dark brown briefcase. Dashi noted that the real Dojo had made himself scarce, a very good move since they didn't yet know how the people in this world would react to seeing a real live dragon.

"Sorry, Professor," said the schoolboy, losing the insulted look. "Sorry, sir."

"Uh, no problem," said Dashi, staring at the tall, black hat. It was the first thing you noticed about the man, because it was longer than the man's head. "My fault for not paying attention."

"Greetings. My name is Hershel Layton, professor of archaeology," said the owner of the hat. He politely tipped it.

"And I'm his apprentice, Luke," the boy supplied cheerfully, tipping his own cap.

"I'm Dashi," said Dashi, wondering if there was anything underneath the hat. A rabbit? Oh well. He'd seen stranger things. He collected himself. "What can I do for you?"

The professor cast a quick eye over the stall, and then turned his gaze back to Dashi. "Mr. Dashi, I hope you can help us. I'm looking for some information."

Dashi nodded, an _I'll see what I can do_ nod, while thinking to himself: _probably not much_.

"I was wondering if you could tell me anything about a box called the Elysian Box. It's also known as Pandora's Box."

_Odd_, thought Dashi. _I stick out like a sore thumb and he thinks I'm part of the local scenery. Maybe he thinks this antiques stall is mine._

"Elysian, Pandora... Greek mythology, huh... Can't say that I've heard of a box named after them," he said, feigning a casual laid-back attitude as he tried to assess the two, and decide whether he could trust them for now.

"Would you mind if I had a look here anyway?" Layton asked, pointing to the stall next to Dashi.

"It's not mine," said Dashi, "but I don't see why not. I wouldn't touch anything, though."

"Yes, of course," said Layton, nodding.

Dashi watched as the professor took a closer look at the stall. Layton regarded the small objects with a careful, searching expression, without actually touching anything. Top hat aside, there was something about Layton that exuded pure gentlemanly... Britishness. He was friendly, but it was a reserved, polite friendly. He sounded like he should have had a monocle and a handle-bar moustache. He _didn't_ have a monocle nor a moustache, which was a shame, Dashi thought, because otherwise he would have fit the stereotype perfectly. All he needed was a pipe and a cup of tea.

The boy Luke was a little harder to gauge from first impressions alone. He looked bright and chirpy enough, with a Cockney accent that one would expect to be accompanied by an in-your-face cheeky rascal attitude. Despite his initial outburst, though, he seemed to have taken a step in the background now, almost taking cues from the professor. Which made sense, Dashi supposed. The teacher and the pupil.

Neither of them had magic. He couldn't sense anything magical about them. But, then, maybe the magic here wasn't the type that he could sense. He needed more information.

He took a shot in the dark.

"Is this London?" he asked. There really wasn't any way of phrasing that kind of question without sounding like either a complete loon or a complete idiot, but he couldn't think of any other way to broach the subject.

When Luke and Layton exchanged confused glances, he added: "Sorry. The truth is, I was taken here against my will. I, erm, escaped, but I'm still very, very lost. I know I should have said something before..." It wasn't all a lie; he _was_ lost, and he hadn't exactly come here by choice.

"What?" said Luke, looking shocked.

"Oh my! How positively dreadful!" said Layton. "Are you okay? Not hurt in any way, are you?" Dashi shook his head. "Have you been to the police? I know there are a couple of police officers staying at one of the hotels near here. Would you like us to accompany you?"

Again, Dashi shook his head, smiling at the genuine concern in Layton's tone. "No, it's fine, thank you. Uh, an old friend of mine found me here. He's nearby, he's just in one of those shops. We'll be okay."

Layton seemed to come to a decision. He placed his briefcase flat on the cart behind them, on an empty space. "Cup of tea?"

Dashi blinked. "Out here?"

"Why not? I find it helps me to relax when I'm trying to solve a good puzzle or two."

Dashi briefly stared at him with an open mix of suspicion and confusion, and then shrugged. _What the hell._

"All right, then."

The briefcase flicked open to reveal an ornate but portable tea set, complete with teapot, teacups, teaspoons, herbal tea ingredients, and a thermos flask for hot water.

_Aha_, thought Dashi, feeling vindicated. _He carries a tea set._ But, despite himself, he couldn't help but feel that this was actually a very good idea. Why not, indeed? Some people smoked cigarettes to calm the nerves, some drank alcohol to forget that they even needed calming. Layton's vice was tea, apparently, and it was a vice worth sharing.

The professor meticulously and precisely measured out herbs, placing them in the teapot, pouring in some water, and waiting while it brewed. Dashi kept a close eye on him. You never really knew what to expect from other worlds. For all he knew, the briefcase and its contents could all spontaneously catch fire.

He poured out a cup to Dashi first. "This is called Dream Spice. Careful as you touch it there, it's a little bit hot. Some for your friend?"

"Nah, he doesn't drink tea." Dashi heard a grumble from underneath the stall, and silently willed Dojo to stay hidden. Dojo was a chatterbox at the best of times, and usually chose to show it at the worst of times.

Layton poured some for himself (Luke had declined), breathed gently over the rim to cool it down, and took a sip. This alleviated Dashi's earlier suspicions by quite a bit. At least now he knew it wasn't poisoned, though he supposed there was still plenty of time for it to burst into flames.

He took the teacup up to his nose, and breathed in. It smelled of cinnamon and oranges. _Oh well. Down the hatch._ He felt the spices dance across his tongue. At the same time, he felt the pleasantly sweet water warm his stomach. He took another gulp, and ended up finishing it.

"It's... it's very good," he said finally. It was just ordinary herbal tea. But very tasty herbal tea. He felt ever so slightly revitalised.

The professor smiled kindly. "You appear to have a lot on your mind, Mr. Dashi, so I thought it might help."

"Thank you," said Dashi, relaxing a little. "And just 'Dashi' is fine."

"Another satisfied customer!" said Luke happily. "We're getting good at this, Professor! Maybe we should open up a stall of our own here."

"There's certainly an opening for a tea business here, I must say," said Layton, chuckling.

Now Dashi wondered if there _was_ a kind of magic to the tea, beneficial magic rather than sinister magic, but somehow the professor didn't seem like the type who would use magic, because if he did they probably would have found the box that they were looking for by now. They wouldn't be asking a random Chinese monk on the street. And that reminded him...

"Where exactly is _here_, then?"

Layton took another sip. "Well," he said after a pause, "this is the town of Folsense. Luke and I did, in fact, travel from London. We are investigating a strange artefact, the Elysian Box, and the trail led us here. There is..." Layton paused again. "I don't want to alarm you, particularly since it's nothing more than a hunch. There is nothing concrete about this feeling. And yet... there is something about this town that I can't quite put my finger on."

"Something odd," said Dashi, agreeing wholeheartedly. He thought about the girl with the blank stare. "Yeah, I thought so too. Something about this place feels wrong."

"It's supposed to be a phantom town," said Luke, looking a little worried all of a sudden. "One that doesn't exist. But we're here, so I s'pose it must exist..."

Dashi nodded; even with the tea perking him up a little, he still felt like he'd been shot with the Woozy Shooter. The only thing stopping him thinking that this place was all in his head was that everyone else was seeing the same thing, too. Unless the _entire_ timeline thing was in his head. Maybe this was all a dream.

"I can't help feeling that the Elysian Box is tied in with it all somehow," said Layton, finishing his cup. Luke took it from him and started clearing up. "I intend to get to the bottom of it."

"You should be careful 'round here, Mister - um, Dashi, sir," said Luke. He was with his back to the adults, behind Layton, as he finished clearing up the tea set.

"How come?"

Luke closed the briefcase and turned around. "There's supposed to be a vampire living in the castle," he said quietly. It looked as though this was what had been bugging him and he hadn't really wanted to admit it.

_Great_, thought Dashi. _Just what I need. A world where those irritating little blood-suckers actually exist._

Layton chuckled at Dashi's expression, as if he didn't believe in such things. "It's only a rumour, but, yes, the locals seem adamant that _he_ exists. People have been disappearing into the night, as it were. Vampire or not, Luke is right: you should be careful. Especially given the circumstances of your arrival."

"Thanks. I'll bear that in mind. So... This Elysian Box..." Dashi paused, trying to find the right words, so as to not arouse suspicion himself. "Is there something... special about it?"

Luke frowned instantly. "It's cursed, sir."

"It supposedly kills all who open it," said Layton, whose expression had also turned serious.

"And you want to find it?" Dashi asked incredulously.

"Another rumour," said Layton, and though the professor kept his face unreadable, Dashi thought he caught a glimpse of uncertainty flicker by. Luke looked as though he was going to say something, but the professor silenced him with a look. Not a glare, but a meaningful look, all the same.

Dashi realised he'd unwittingly trespassed into a forbidden area with explosive mines hidden in the ground, and he backtracked out of it. "Well... I'm sorry I couldn't be of much help. I don't know anything about the Elysian Box, but... ah, I know! I do still have a box of my own that you might be interested in."

He took out the new, empty puzzle box and handed it to the professor, who looked at him and then down at it quizzically. Dashi had made it because he was worried he'd have to face Wuya again, but he could always make another one. An empty puzzle box was just that: a puzzle, in the form of a box.

"What is it?"

Dashi noticed a controlled fire of interest flare up in Layton's eyes, which were carefully scrutinising the small box as he turned it round and round in his hands, and suddenly he could see the archaeologist in him shining right through the reserved, gentlemanly exterior.

"It's just a wooden puzzle box. You solve it by moving the wood blocks around. Did you say you liked solving puzzles?"

Luke brightened up, and now Dashi saw that in this area of conversation he'd unwittingly struck gold. "Are you kidding? The professor's _only_ the best puzzle master in all of London - no, all of England - no, the whole wide _world_!"

"Now, Luke, let's not exaggerate." As Layton said this, though, he hadn't looked up. His full attention was on the box.

"But it's true! He's a genius!" Layton scoffed mildly. Luke ignored it. "He's been in the papers, you know. He always solves every mystery we come across well before I ever figure anything out."

Dashi knew that look in Luke's eyes. The look of blind faith that said _this guy can do anything_. It was the very same look that Chase and Guan constantly gave him because apparently he knew all the answers. Did Layton have all the answers? Dashi didn't think so.

But it seemed to Dashi, as Layton fidgeted with the box in silent and very concentrated wonder, that the professor found a great sense of joy in _searching_ for the answers. It wasn't the answer itself he was after, but the search for clues, the dogged persistence in following the trail - it all culminated in the immense satisfaction you received when all your hard work paid off and you finally figured it out...

That's what _he_ needed to do with this timeline mystery. It was like a big puzzle box, he just had to keep at it until he could solve it. Even if it was all just a dream, he might as well see it through to the end.

"Remarkable design," said Layton, mostly to himself.

Now Dashi chuckled. "You can keep it if you want."

Alarm bells labelled 'Good Manners' rung, and Layton pulled himself away from the puzzle, blinking in surprise. "I couldn't do that. This is yours, Dashi."

"Naw, it's okay. I insist. I've got loads, they're easy enough to make. It's about the only thing I'm good at." _Along with creating mystical power objects that cause cracks in the windows of time_, he thought grimly. "Can always make another one."

"You made this yourself?"

Dashi shrugged. He wasn't one to brag. "Yeah, pretty much. Keep it - as thanks for the tea."

"Well... thank you very much. I shall consider it a souvenir of our encounter."

"I just hope it doesn't take you too long to solve it," Dashi added with a smirk.

"Ha! No problem at all for the great Professor Layton!" said Luke smugly, while Layton tried to wave off his apprentice's enthusiasm. "He always says that every puzzle has an answer."

_Well... this timeline thing better have one_, thought Dashi. _Otherwise I'll be more than just completely screwed. I'll be crazy._

Layton thanked Dashi again, and then both he and Luke continued on their way, walking down the street. Apart from the little girl, there was no one else in the small street, so once Dashi was sure Layton and Luke were gone, he went behind the stall and sat down, so that no one could see him. He pulled out the two pieces of glass. The second fragment was a more irregular shape, slightly rectangular, but it was the same translucent-like purple colour as the first one.

"Wish I knew what these were," Dashi mumbled out loud. "I wonder what would happen if I poured a bit of chi into it?"

"Sounds kinda dangerous," said Dojo.

"Well... they feel very familiar, but I can't place it either. I need to figure this out, Dojo. Otherwise we might be stuck here for good."

"Okay..." said Dojo, his expression briefly showing uncertainty before softening, indicating that, no matter what, he trusted Dashi to do the right thing, and if Dashi wanted to use his chi to see what would happen, then he would stick right by him.

Dashi shut his eyes, slowing the rate of his breathing right down. He felt the peculiar energy inside the glass, and, with his own energy he pulled, ever so slightly.

Just like the first piece, this one shot a stream of light upwards, and the path of the light then changed to a horizontal one once it had gone high up in the sky.

"Hmm," said Dashi, looking up. "Last time it did that by itself. Good to know that I don't have to wait for them to do it."

He pulled the second piece out of the air, and again the beam of light remained in place. He stood up, hoping any passers-by would think that the beam of light behind the stall was part of the lighting, but there wasn't anyone else except for the little girl. The girl still stared, apparently still in her own private little world, so Dashi figured it was okay for Dojo take him on another flight.

Dojo followed the beam upwards and then high over the small town. The beam of light was pointing to a castle beyond the town, past a small forest. The castle was suitably dark, spooky and dismal, with finger-like branches of trees outside, stretching over any visitors, and with pointed spires that blocked a small part of the large full moon shining right behind it. It reminded Dashi of Wuya.

"Vampire?" said Dojo, landing just outside the large wooden door.

"Let's find out," said Dashi.

* * *

The griffin's egg shot out of the portal, landing in some soft soil, now covered in shade coming from the trees that towered above it. The giant yellow bird, a cross between an ostrich and a prehistoric terror bird, was not particularly smart, but it was a loving parent and, as such, it just did what any of the females of its species would have done when confronted with such a sight. It used its head to gently nudge the egg into its own nest, where it would be safe with the other eggs: and down it sat.

"Aw, _man_," said the dragon.

"Kweh," said the bird.


	6. Chapter 5: Something Wicked

**Author's Note:** I'll take this opportunity to thank Shadir and everyone else for reading. Even though I would upload this story regardless, the reviews and story alerts and page hits do make a huge difference - they really do make it all worthwhile. :)

The Komori Sword, the Bear Baton and the Ninja Sash are all Shen Gong Wu from the official XS trading card game.

So far there hasn't really been a central antagonist driving events, only a general mystery concerning the universe's destruction, the space-time disruptions across other worlds, and the XS timeline deviating from its normal path. This chapter is where things start to take a turn for the worst.

* * *

**Chapter 5: "Something Wicked..."**

* * *

It wasn't often that Wuya worried about Jack. Any feelings of sympathy soon vanished once she'd known him long enough to find out that his bumbling incompetence was usually the reason why he would be in such a mess in the first place. But she was worried now. She freely admitted it to herself. Wuya _was_ worried about Jack. It was because he was acting quite a bit weird, and not in the usual _overly obsessed with robots_ way, but in a wider, more bizarre _I've seen the entire universe all at once and now I've snapped_ kind of way.

After he'd fallen sleep yesterday, she hadn't been able to wake him. He'd woken up this morning with an odd, glassy expression on his face, as if his mind wasn't all there. Now he was sitting in a corner, staring blankly at the wall, muttering and mumbling. She couldn't make out the words, they were too garbled.

Probably best to act normal, she figured. She'd watch him closely. She hovered nearer to him, and this time she could hear what he was saying. He was speaking clearly now.

"It doesn't matter," said Jack absently, to himself. He didn't acknowledge Wuya's presence, and he still had a glazed look in his eyes, but now a small smile appeared. "It won't change anything."

She stared at him, slightly unsettled. She was used to strange and dark happenings - in fact, most of the time, when she'd had her full powers, she'd been the cause of them - and this was not very Jack-like behaviour at all. He was almost acting like a bona fide, _insane_ evil genius, ready to dive right into the crazy end of villainy and create a Frankenstein-like monster from nuts and bolts.

"I'm going to kill the Xiaolin warriors and take the Sands of Time from them," he declared then, his smile becoming dreamy.

"What?" said Wuya. That would actually be a useful thing to do, but... it was the _way_ he'd said it. Like he was on another plane of existence to everyone else. As if everything that happened here was inconsequential, although that was probably true if he was right about the universe coming to an end.

"That sounded unusually evil for you, Jack," she said finally. "Are you sure you're all right?"

"I'm fine," said Jack, and now his voice had a defensive tone, his eyes becoming stony as he focused them on her. His gaze softened, as if he'd only just realised she was there. "I just had a small epiphany. After our little discussion. It came to me in my sleep."

"Really?" she said, unable to hide her surprise. She wasn't quite sure what about their talk had been particularly epiphanic. They'd been talking about the end of the universe. What on earth had he dreamed about?

"Yeah," he said. "I'm supposed to be evil." He pointed to himself in the chest with a thumb. "Evil boy genius, remember?"

"Yes, but you're a pathetic, whiny evil. No one takes you seriously."

He now looked pleasantly amused. He tilted his head, giving her a half-smile. "I should do something to change that, then, shouldn't I?"

_I suppose that's fair enough..._ she thought. _Maybe he's making up for lost time._

"What about the universe?" she said.

"You don't need to worry about the universe. In fact, you don't need to worry about anything at all. I've come up with a brilliant plan."

And then - the world turned to green.

Wuya opened her eyes. She wasn't in Jack's house any more. She appeared to be in a small bakery. Breads of different sizes and shapes, delicious pastries and scrumptious cakes, doughnuts, cookies: all were on several shelves.

What on earth had that idiot Jack done?

There was a man behind the counter in a white apron, wearing a white baker's hat. It was Dashi! He looked very odd in his baker's get-up, but there was no mistaking him. After spending all that time fighting him and plotting how to get rid of him, Wuya would have recognised him anywhere.

"Wuya?" he said, staring at her quizzically.

She couldn't believe it! Dashi the baker? What kind of weird world was this?

She didn't wait to see whether this Dashi was going to attack her. She hurried away, phasing through the wall out into the street. She gasped in horror at the sight she saw. The people driving their cars, the people walking on the street, the people in the restaurants and the shops... every _one_ of them was Dashi. Small Dashis. Big Dashis. As far as the eye could see.

High in the sky, a Dashi zeppelin floated by, flying through Dashi-shaped clouds. The sun was Dashi's head.

Dashi.

Dashi.

_Dashi_.

Not worry about the universe? There was plenty to worry about! She was going to go insane here!

An image appeared in her head. _Not_ Dashi's head, but a Shen Gong Wu. The Komori Sword was in a castle. The Komori Sword... The Komori Sword...

Somehow, the new Shen Gong Wu brought her back to Jack's basement again. She'd never felt so dizzy. Her mind was circles in going... in circles going... doing something... probably...

"What... what was I doing?"

"You were saying something about the Komori Sword being in a castle," said Jack, now looking a little worried himself. "And I was just about to tell you about my plan..."

"Ah..." She shook herself, and stared at Jack with mild confusion, trying to see if his expression would give anything away. He was still looking concerned, but... she wasn't sure quite why. What had happened just then? A blank space was all she could remember. Her memory of the last few hours was muddled... Something about... Dashi? The universe? There was something wrong? Or was she just imagining things?

Jack's face was really worried now, almost verging on panicked. "What's wrong? Are _you_ all right? What happened?"

"I'm... fine. Yes, yes, I'm fine," she said, returning to her snappish self. "What's your plan?"

* * *

Dashi and Wuya were not the only ones being thrown from world to world. Chase Young was in a different dimension, made up of nothing but the blankness of the colour white. This was the dimension of Infinity. Things like gravity and mass didn't apply here; you just walked, and your feet automatically felt the ground, even though there was no ground to speak of. It was a little bit like the peculiarity of the Yin-Yang world, but whereas in that world it felt like anything could happen, in this dimension it felt as though nothing could happen.

Chase wasn't really sure what to make of all this. His timeline must have changed by now, to the one that resulted in the end of the universe, and he should have vanished like Omi did, but he'd been teleported here instead. Saved by the yellow pika-rat things? Or by something else? He had no idea what to do about the changed timeline, either. It wasn't as if you could test something like this out on a daily basis.

On the other hand, there _had_ been a precedent for this kind of situation. It was because Dashi had crashed the universe before that Chase knew where he was. He started to walk on the non-existent ground, following a trail of two separate unusual energies, which, while distinct and independent of one another, were both coming from the same direction.

Presently, he saw a white, wooden door, standing upright in the middle of nowhere, and realised he had been correct. It _was_ just like the time Dashi had mistakenly caused a Time-error with the Sands of Time. The door was the source of one of the unusual energies. But when he tried to get closer, he bumped into something that only became visible when you touched it. It was a red force field, with a jelly-like consistency that bounced you away when you tried to step through it.

_Hmm._

The force field hadn't been here last time.

He could feel it throbbing, as if it was alive. It was part of a time stream, and was the source of the second odd energy. Chase had learned a little about time streams from his days with Dashi, and he could feel that Time itself was running extremely fast inside the force field, like it had gone out of control.

The wooden door was still a bit of a way off, but it was the object above the door that had his interest. About ten metres above was a swirling silver hole, and it was about big enough to fit a car inside. He knew what it was.

The hole was a tear in space-time, just like the Time-error that Dashi had caused when he had first created the Sands of Time. When the old, original hole had appeared here, it had been a link to their world. But, it was supposed to have been closed by Dashi, too. This dimension represented Infinity, meaning that it was perpendicular to any and every timeline axis. In other words, it existed outside all timelines. Anything here existed all at once or not at all. If Dashi had closed a link, it should have stayed closed. Everywhere, and in every time.

Something else had reopened it. That was why Chase's timeline was so very, very wrong. Another Time-error, a glitch in time, had appeared and changed Chase's timeline. The energy that he could sense behind the door had caused it, perhaps? He hadn't gone inside the last time. Dashi had told both Chase and Guan to wait outside, while he fixed the mistake he'd made...

_Bu-dum._

_Bu-dum._

A slow, repetitive rhythm caught Chase's attention. He turned around and saw that it was coming from a large, dark blue creature, at least five metres tall. It was on four legs, a long neck like a sauropod shooting up from its body, but with a spiky head-crest. It had a metal breastplate over its chest, with a blue gem in the centre, and several metallic spikes jutting out from its back. The sound was its beating heart.

The alien creature bent its long neck, peering down at him. It was certainly imposing, but somehow Chase could tell that there was an ancient intelligence behind its fierce red eyes. Despite its great size, it didn't appear to be hostile.

There was only one reason an intelligent being would purposely be here. He looked up at the alien straight in the eye. "The universe has been destroyed," he said, on the off-chance that it would understand him.

The alien didn't talk, it just growled in reply. Somehow Chase took this to mean: "I know."

"Do you know why? What destroyed it?"

A slower, more uncertain growl, almost like a whine. "No."

"Do you know what's inside that hole in space-time?"

This time, a mental image appeared. In his mind's eye, Chase saw the Earth's demise. It started with a city: its people, streets, trees, lampposts, cars, postboxes, dogs, cats, pigeons, shops. Everything - the sky and the ground - it all swirled, merging together into a grey, turning vortex. The viewpoint drew away from Earth, backing out to outer space, into a satellite orbit around it. From this distance, Earth looked like a giant version of the Time-error, a planet-sized hole in space-time. Then, once again, it all swirled, the space around the Earth also greying and mixing together, until it was the entire Solar System, and then the entire Milky Way.

The universe swirled. The Big Collapse. The Big Crunch. The Time Crash. And then there was nothing... except shattered pieces of purple glass, flying everywhere.

Chase was brought back.

"The end of the universe. That's where that hole leads..."

"Yes," said the growl.

"Is there a way to repair the universe? Undo the damage?"

An image of Dashi appeared inside Chase's head. Dashi, before the Xiaolin temple had been built. Before he had become Grandmaster.

"I see... Dashi might be able to fix it." This didn't surprise Chase in the least. This was beyond Heylin magic's ability to repair - the scale was just too large - and, in theory, beyond Xiaolin chi magic, too, but if anyone could find a way to un-destroy the universe, it would be Dashi. Out of control time streams and broken universes were right up his alley.

"He's still alive somewhere, then. Where is he?"

"I don't know," growled the alien.

"So we need to find Dashi, that's what you're saying. Do you have any idea where to start?"

The alien sauropod growled in assent, and, with its mind, opened a portal of its own. It was a blue portal, and the world on the other side appeared to be made of the colour blue. Blue bubbles floated around in it.

"After you, then," said Chase.

* * *

A new day, a new Xiaolin Showdown. Raimundo leapt across several floating rocks, each one a little lower and lower, shouting taunts at Jack up above for being so slow. They were inside a castle tower, the goal of this showdown being to reach the bottom of the stone staircase first, and Raimundo was nearly there, using the Mantis Flip Coin to dodge gargoyles breathing fire from the side of the wall, and to avoid huge swinging maces on chains and the occasional swarm of bats.

Still lagging behind, Jack had now started to cheat and fly using his Heli-pack, which prompted another scoff from Raimundo. Taunting Jack - or anyone else, for that matter - was Raimundo's way of hiding what he was truly thinking. And that was: where was his time machine? Would Jack use it to automatically win in the same way they had used the Sands of Time? That had been everyone's worry, but Jack didn't seem to have it with him here.

On the other hand, Jack had wagered the Monkey Staff instead of, say, the Shard of Lightning. It was a wonder someone could be so smart and yet so stupid at the same time, but somehow Jack was a world-class expert at it.

_Come to think of it_, thought Raimundo as he reached up and grabbed the Komori Sword to end the showdown, _where's__ Wuya__?_ _Isn't she usually telling Jack off for doing that kind of thing?_

The surroundings had turned back to normal, normal being the bottom of a stone staircase in a huge tower, and the other Xiaolin warriors crowded around Raimundo to congratulate him for winning. Jack had landed some way away, looking uninterested in anything except scratching himself. Raimundo looked around, but couldn't see any signs of Wuya. Did she have some kind of plan?

Raimundo's fingers prickled, almost like a danger sense, a holdover from when he used to live in Rio de Janeiro. Something was wrong. He looked back at Jack.

Jack was still a monkey, running round and round in circles, like a dog chasing its tail. This was somewhat troubling because a) Jack was speaking in a monotone voice, repeating the words, "Must find banana. Must find banana. Must find banana," over and over again; and more importantly b) having lost the showdown, he no longer had the Monkey Staff in his possession, which meant he should have reverted back.

Raimundo was about to query Jack's monkeyness, when Jack stopped, placed both his hands on the stone wall next to him, as if pushing against it, and started banging his head on it. Again, and again, and again.

The Xiaolin warriors exchanged worried glances, and then Kimiko cautiously approached him, making sure to keep enough of a distance so that if he really had lost it, she could easily dodge if he lashed out.

"Uh, Jack…? I know you lost, but that's no reason to –"

Jack's head exploded.

Omi screamed, until Clay examined the remains of the body which had fallen to the ground on its back, at which point Omi exclaimed wildly, "What are you doing?"

"Woah, there. Settle down, lil' partner. It's a robot." Clay pointed to the neck of the headless body, which had sparks flying out, and wires of different colours dangling loosely.

"Weird," said Kimiko. "Maybe the Monkey Staff messed up its circuitry."

"If this is a robot," Omi said slowly, once he'd recovered, "where is the real Jack?"

"Uh oh," said Raimundo, eyes widening in understanding. So that's what they were up to! "The Xiaolin temple! They must be after our Shen Gong Wu!" And they'd left the Serpent's Tail and Reversing Mirror back there - the combination of Shen Gong Wu that had restored Wuya to full strength.

As Dojo grew to his larger, passenger-carrying size, there was a flash of white from Omi. He pulled out the Sands of Time from inside his robes. It was pulsing a deep red. To Omi's horror, the Sands of Time flashed a brilliant white again.

"What is happen–"

He vanished.

"Uh oh," said Dojo.

"What happened?" Kimiko demanded. "Where'd he go?"

"Arrgh, this just keeps getting better and better!" Raimundo snarled in frustration. "Why did it just activate by itself?"

"Oh, dear," said Dojo.

"Don't worry," said Clay, "I'm sure he'll be back…"

"We don't have time to wait for him," said Raimundo. "He's the one with the time-travelling Shen Gong Wu, he'll have to meet us at the temple."

Somewhat reluctantly, the three remaining Dragons-in-training climbed onto Dojo's back, and he rose high into the air, with as much urgency as the first time Wuya had tried to restore herself.

"Dojo," said Kimiko softly, as they raced through the air. "You know something, don't you? Where is he? Where's Omi?"

Dojo sighed. "Something like this happened a long time ago, when Grandmaster Dashi first created the Sands of Time. But... it's impossible," he added.

"Why?"

"Well, when it happened before, the Shard of Lightning was in use as well. They need to be used at the same time. I don't know why the Sands of Time would suddenly activate itself now and not yesterday, when Jack froze us all. But we could probably find out. Dashi must have left some notes in one of the old scrolls."

"Then, the sooner we get back, the better," said Clay.

* * *

Wuya had to admit, this was one of Jack's better ideas. Send the shape-shifting Chameleon-bot equipped with Detecto-bot to fight for the newest Shen Gong Wu in place of Jack, and while the warriors were busy performing the usual showdown theatrics, she and Jack could steal the rest of their Wu from the temple, and then ambush them when they came back. She wasn't sure why they hadn't come up with it sooner.

The only problem was... well, Jack. As usual. It wasn't in any way surprising, just incredibly irritating. He was taking forever to actually _steal _the Shen Gong Wu. He kept pausing to examine each Shen Gong Wu in turn, before placing them in his usual booty bag.

"The Longi Kite," he recited somewhat woodenly, as if he was reading out loud from a book. "Gives the user the ability to fly with dragon wings..."

"What's wrong with you, boy? Hurry up before Fung and the rest of those old fools realise we're here!"

"Re-lax, we have all the time in the world," he said. "I'm just re-checking what they all do. With so many of them it's getting harder to keep track. Oh, hello." Here he had opened a different drawer from the vault and taken a peek inside. "I don't think I remember these Shen Gong Wu. Bear Baton? Ninja Sash?" He held one then the other in front of his face, then put them both inside the bag. "I… don't seem to have any recollection of their powers."

"Of course you wouldn't remember them - you lost them before you got a chance to use them, you fool!"

"They're important?" he asked nonchalantly, not seeming to care one way or the other.

"Yes, yes, of course they're important!" Wuya snapped, beginning to lose what little patience she had with the boy. "Get on with it!"

"No... I don't think so..." Jack seemed bored, and turned to face her. He looked at her without really looking _at _her.

Wuya felt like she was going to explode from the amount of incredulous anger that had risen up at Jack's refusal. It wasn't the refusal itself that was so infuriating, though that did irk her. It was his casual, almost arrogant air, like he didn't even care that she existed. She was certain that he was acting like this on purpose to annoy her.

"No? What do you mean _no_?"

"None of the Shen Gong Wu here are of use to me. I... think..." Jack said slowly and very deliberately, "I think I'll just destroy them all instead."

"_What?"_

"Wait! Of course. The Golden Tiger Claws." He reached into the bag and put them onto his right hand. "These will come in handy."

He looked away from his Clawed hand to reveal a maniacal grin, and Wuya could only gape. "Destroy the Shen Gong Wu? _You? _ Have you completely lost your mind?"

The disturbing, insane laughter that came as his answer indicated that, yes, he _had_ lost his mind. There were other signs too. Like the twisted smile that formed very slowly afterwards. And the eyes. The eyes that were the detached and cold eyes of a murderer. Like he would smash open a ribcage and carve out the still beating heart from the body, and still have the same manic, gleeful expression stuck there the whole time.

Something went "click" inside Wuya's head and a dam burst, a flood of memories pouring out.

"Jack... what's happened to you? You're not him, are you?"

He lost the manic smile, now looking hurt. "What makes you say that? Ask me any question you like. Go on. Let's see. Ask me about when we found the Third-Arm Sash. Or I could tell you how the Time-bot works. I know I bored you with all the temporal mechanics last time, but that's a thing only I would know, right?"

His confidence threw Wuya a little. Was he Jack, or wasn't he? But-

"I remember everything! You wiped my memory! You made me forget about the universe being destroyed, about your weird behaviour before -"

And, just like that, his manner became aggressive. He fired a green blast from his hand, and suddenly she couldn't move. "And I could do it again, if I wanted," he snarled. "But this time I'll keep this part of your memory intact," a small smile crept in, "it'll be more fun that way. Of course, you don't remember _everything_... No point in being stopped before I've had some real fun."

Now it was obvious that this wasn't Jack, at least not any more. Since when could he fire green energy? In all the experiments with time travel, had he messed with something he shouldn't have? Had his mind been corrupted somehow? Had he been driven truly insane? The timeline had been changed? What was it?

She struggled against the energy. "What do you want? The destruction of the universe? Is that what you really want?"

"I couldn't care less what happens. All I need is the Sands of Time, and then -" his hands fizzled and he shoved her into a drawer, apparently able to actually touch her "- I'll be out of here."

"Jack Spicer."

A figure stood at the top of the stairs, at the entrance to the Shen Gong Wu vault. Jack held his hand up, forming a sphere of glowing green power, eerily lighting up his face like a jack-o-lantern in the dark.

"Master Fung," he said, the deranged smile back. "So glad you could join us."


	7. Chapter 6: All Work and No Play

**Chapter 6: All Work And No Play**

* * *

Dojo rushed through the air as fast as he could, away from the site of the Komori Sword showdown. He had nearly reached the Xiaolin temple. He flew close to the ground, through the valley, following the river upstream, along the path that would eventually lead to the mountains that surrounded the temple. Far ahead, clouds had formed above the mountain range, covering the area directly underneath in darkness, in stark contrast with the bright sun-covered beauty of the valley just before it.

As he came closer, he could see that something was definitely wrong. The clouds in the centre were green, spinning round in a spiral, an ominous cyclone the centre of which was above the temple.

He hurried even faster.

* * *

The vampire of Folsense turned out to be a pretty decent bloke, as vampires went. He didn't fight, or bare any fangs, or try to stop Dashi from looking at the shimmering piece of purple glass that had appeared above the long table in his dining room. In fact, he seemed quite distraught over its sudden appearance, and both pleased and relieved that someone knew what it was.

He was young, and pale, and handsome, as vampires usually were, and wore a purple cape, as they usually did. His name was Anton, and he had a beautiful castle that was much more pleasant to look at on the inside than it was on the outside. Grand halls, stone staircases, glass chandeliers, paintings on the walls, suits of armour, decorative swords, a creepy-looking butler - it was all there.

And he was completely co-operative. It was almost disappointing, really. Dashi had been fully expecting a fight, but the vampire wasn't having any of it. He was as cordial as Professor Layton had been.

But...

Yes, there _was_ a but. And it was this: the Woozy Shooter feeling, the brain's feeling of being dozy and all fogged up, was at its strongest here. If this castle was the source of the mystery surrounding the town of Folsense - and Dashi had a feeling that it was - then Layton would certainly need to keep his wits about him if he was going to solve it.

Unfortunately, Dashi would have to leave the professor to it. This wasn't his world, and he couldn't interfere with this world any more than he could interfere with a timeline in his own world. He daren't make things worse than they already were. Besides, if he stopped to help every world he came across, he'd never get round to fixing his own one.

Dashi touched the third piece of glass, and disappeared.

"I must be dreaming," said Anton.

"Very good, sir," said the butler.

* * *

A couple of hours passed, and the town of Folsense saw Professor Layton engaging in a conversation with a man outside a greengrocers, slightly distracted by the stink of garlic. The shop's owner had stocked his entire store and the stalls outside with garlic and nothing else; and the keeper of the watch tower next door had seen fit to hang strands upon strands of the pungent vegetable at the tower's open entrance.

_No vampires here, then,_ thought Luke triumphantly.

There _was_ a voice from inside the tower which said, rather unsurprisingly: "This _stinks_!"

And then a small, grey dog stepped out. Luke was very good with animals; his brain immediately identified the breed as Shar Pei.

On the surface, Luke may have appeared to be an ordinary schoolboy, but one thing that set him apart from the average eleven-year-old was his ability to talk to animals. Though the professor knew about this unusual talent, it was not something Luke broadcast publicly. The last thing he wanted was to become a complete outcast in the eyes of his peers, or to have someone use the ability for an unscrupulous reason - both of which had happened in the past, due to his naiveté. Now he just kept quiet. Things were just safer that way.

And, it didn't necessarily mean he was perfect with animals, anyway. Animals could be just as temperamental as humans, and more often than not he'd ended up with a scratch or two from a cantankerous cat. Nonetheless, the ability did come in handy on the odd occasion like this one, and he approached the little dog, not expecting too much, but prepared just in case. Not every animal was willing to talk, but when they were, they were often very useful sources of information.

"Hello," said Luke, in animal-speak, bending down and offering his hand out for the dog to sniff. "I wonder if you could help me?"

"You can speak Animal?" said the dog, in English.

"You can speak English?" said Luke, also in English.

"Well, a human speaking Dog is just as unusual as a dog speaking Human," the dog insisted stubbornly. It turned around and quickly walked back through the iron gate, inside the entrance to the watch tower. Luke followed, where the stench of even more strands of garlic awaited, along with a boy who was frowning at the grey dog. The other boy was a little taller than Luke and looked slightly older, and he wore a red jacket, with blue-jean shorts. He had black hair that put Luke in mind of a magpie, because of the green sheen that shone off the hair when the light hit it a certain way.

"Ugh, way to give the game away!" the magpie-boy exclaimed in frustration; obviously he'd heard the outside conversation.

"Hey, hey, _hey_ - he can speak Animalese," the dog responded. "I gave away _nothing_."

_It's__ gotta__ be a robot_, thought Luke, giving the Shar Pei an intense, but thoughtful stare. _How can a dog speak English?_

_How can a human speak Animal?_ his brain shot back.

_Be quiet, brain. _

Luke had seen robots before, ones that were incredibly life-like - so life-like, in fact, that you couldn't even tell they were robots until you opened their stomach compartments and removed their gears and clockwork.

_But if you're gonna use a robot to create an illusion of a living creature, why have a talking dog? Not very realistic, is it? Everyone knows dogs can't talk._

The magpie-boy and his dog were still arguing - the boy looked particularly frantic about the revelation of the 'secret', waving arms about - and Luke noted that they both had American accents. _Wonder what they're doing here? Are they looking for the Elysian Box as well?_

"Uh, look," Luke said out loud, not wanting them to get into a fight because of him. "I won't say anything, I promise. I'm just lookin' for something, that's all. My name's Luke, by the way," he added, extending a friendly hand.

"Uh, Jake," said the other boy, shaking hands. He still looked somewhere between aghast and annoyed. "Jake Long. This is Fu Dog."

"Nice to meet ya, kid," said Fu Dog, waving a paw.

"So, er, Jake," said Luke, "you haven't seen any pieces of torn paper lying around, by any chance?"

"Pieces of paper?" asked Jake, his expression changing to one that was baffled. True, it was quite an odd thing to ask of someone you had just met, but after travelling with the professor for quite some time, Luke was used to asking random people for equally random information. You never knew when someone would give away a vital clue.

"Yeah, they're s'posed to be a photo of this box we're looking for, but the picture was torn. They're scattered all over town."

"Oh, wow," said Fu Dog. "And I thought our object-gathering task was hard."

Jake crossed his arms, shaking his head. "Haven't seen any, I'm afraid. But while we're at it... Well, I'm looking for an egg, 'bout yay big." He indicated the size of the egg with both index fingers.

Luke made a puzzled face; their request was in some ways more bizarre than his own one. The size was too big to be a chicken's egg, but probably too small for an ostrich...

"An egg? Can't say I've seen one, specifically - but you could try the grocer's next door."

"All right, thanks!" said Jake, already sprinting out of the entrance, Fu Dog right after him.

Not really sure what was so special about an egg, Luke walked back outside, just in time to see Jake scream, "Arrgh!" and race towards Professor Layton - who was holding a rather large egg in his left hand. The man that the professor had been talking to was still there: a middle-aged man with a green cap, who was affiliated with either the grocer's or the watch tower by virtue of the fact that he wore garlic around his neck.

The egg itself was not an egg you could eat; it looked like some kind of talisman.

"Hmm," said the professor, "I'm quite sure I've never seen one like this before. A gold spiralling pattern on the outside... It feels quite fragile, too."

"Well, you keep it, then. Don't got no room for no bad luck talismans in my tower. Gotta keep the vampire away, right?"

"Indeed," said Layton.

"Ah, please can I have that egg?" said Jake urgently, apparently not caring that he was barging right into someone else's conversation. "It's mine." Fu Dog was by his side.

Layton gave the garlic man an _I thought it was your egg_ look, silently asking for permission to give the egg away.

"It's _yours_, Mr. Archaeologist," said the man, shrugging. "I gave it to _you_."

Layton gave Jake a suspicious look. "Is this really yours?"

Jake clenched his fists, but kept his cool. "Yes!"

"All right," said Layton. "I'll give it to you -" and Luke recognised the smile that appeared - "_if_ you can solve this puzzle first."

"What? No fair! It's mine, give it back!"

"That's how we do things 'round 'ere," said the garlic man. "I found that egg fair and squares, like. You want something, you gotta earn it. You earn your keep by solving puzzles."

"Okay, fine," said Jake, smirking and folding his arms in haughty nonchalance. "I can handle _one little puzzle_."

_Really_, thought Luke, quickly annoyed with Jake's sudden confidence. The professor didn't just hand out _little_ puzzles.

"Let me see..." said Layton, pausing thoughtfully. "Ah, here we go. King Henry has nine coins, which appear identical, but in fact one of them is an underweight fake. He has a weighing scale. Now: tell me how he can determine the _fake_ coin..."

"Yeah..."

"..._Without_ using the scales more than twice."

"Without using... W-what? I have to... solve that_?_ Now? What are you, some kind of math teacher?"

"Professor Layton," said he.

"A professor? Even worse!" said Jake.

He took a wistful look at the egg, sighed, and combed a hand through his green-black hair. "Um, so... let's see, nine coins. Two tries. Nine coins, two tries. So, four is four... on that side... but if I put four on that side..."

While Jake continued to think over the question, Luke felt some pressure against the back of his ankle. He looked down, and saw that Fu Dog was using his head to nudge it.

"Nine coins, _two_ tries..." said Jake.

"Woof, woof," said Fu Dog, who had apparently made the decision to revert to Dog in the presence of the adults. His left paw was treading on something: a piece of torn paper.

"Oh, Professor," said Luke sharply.

"What is it?"

"Nine coins, two tries," said Jake.

"Woof, woof," said Fu Dog. "Woof, woof, woof."

"Uh, he says, 'What about if I give you a piece of the picture? Will you give us the egg then?' "

"Ah..." said Layton, following Luke's gaze, "that's a photo scrap..."

Fu Dog lifted his paw, and Luke bent down to pick up the piece of paper.

"Yes," said Layton, looking over Luke's shoulder, "it's part of our missing photo." He turned to Jake, who was still muttering about nines and twos. "All right, young man, fair is fair. Here you go."

"Phew," said Jake, taking the egg and hold it close as if it was a baby, "thank goodness for that."

"Bah," said the garlic man in disappointment, retreating to the watch tower.

"Uh, thanks," said Jake hastily, looking very eager to leave. "Bye!"

"Wait - before you go, may I ask what the egg is?" said Layton.

"Huh? It's the, uh, Griffin Egg," said Jake, slightly taken by surprise. "I'm supposed to be looking after it. It's for my grandpa."

"It doesn't have any special properties, does it?"

"No," said Jake slowly.

"I see," said Layton, carefully. "Well, take care."

"Bye!" Luke called.

With that, the magpie-boy and his talking dog left. Luke and Layton started to walk in the opposite direction.

"I wonder what was so special about that egg?" said Luke. "It all seemed a bit fishy to me."

"Yes, I think so too, but we'll have to put it to one side for now. We're here for the Elysian Box, remember."

"We're nearly there!" said Luke excitedly. "Probably one or two pieces left, and then we'll know what it looks like!" He yawned, rubbing his eyes. "Wow. Sorry, Professor, guess I'm tired."

"Perhaps we should take a break," said Layton, looking at his watch. "It's quite late. We've been going at it non-stop. It would be good to stop for a while and recharge our batteries."

"Right you are, Professor. You know that saying: all work and no play."

"Makes Jack a dull boy. Yes."

* * *

It was dark within the eye of the storm, where it harboured an uneasy, unusual dimness like that of a solar eclipse. Dojo landed on the very edge of the temple grounds, not really wanting to go any nearer. What little light there was cast the temple buildings and trees in a dismal grey, and threw long, menacing shadows in completely unfamiliar places.

"Do you think Wuya managed to get her body back again while we were frozen?" Kimiko wondered, folding her arms and shivering a little in the wind.

"Mayhaps Omi's gone and done something in the past," Clay said, offering an alternate explanation. Omi was still missing, taken away by the rogue actions of the Sands of Time.

"Yeah," Raimundo said, "but if he had, we wouldn't notice any difference because we'd be in the changed timeline." He paused thoughtfully, brow slightly creased in confusion. "Or would we?"

Dojo frowned at the sky. "I have a really bad feeling about this…"

Clay rolled up his cowboy gloves, drawing himself up to full height. "Right!" he said. "Nothing to it but ta do it!" Showing no hesitation whatsoever, he started walking into the grounds without the others, seeming to taking the lead in Omi's absence.

"Glad he's so friggin' eager," Raimundo remarked with a sarcastic frown, not quite sharing his companion's enthusiasm.

"I hope Omi's okay," said Kimiko worriedly. At times, it could be very frustrating being the only girl at the temple, as she often had to prove to the guys that the fairer sex did not mean the weaker sex, and that usually meant putting on a tough face. That, combined with her fiery temper, meant that she rarely showed a softer side. Still, she did have a soft spot for Omi, who - she thought - would actually be pretty sweet and cute if he would just get off his high horse once in a while.

"Omi may be a little guy, but he's tough," said Raimundo. "As long as he doesn't meet any crazy monster squirrels, he'll be fine."

Kimiko nodded, allowing herself to smile at Raimundo's faith in Omi. "You're right."

Dojo coiled himself around Raimundo's shoulders. "Shall we go after Clay? I mean, he is in _there_, all alone..."

"Tch," said Kimiko, "as long as no one mentions his grandma, nothing bothers _him_."

"Good," said Raimundo, "because _me_? I'm seriously getting freaked out here."

"You and me both," said Dojo.

As Raimundo and Kimiko ran to catch up to Clay, Clay slowed his pace to a more tentative one, finally coming to a stop at the entrance to the training area.

"Well?" Raimundo said.

Clay shrugged. "Doesn't seem to be anything here."

They slowly made their way through the training grounds, trepidation and unease radiating from them collectively. It was reminiscent of the time the Sapphire Dragon had first come to life, having to check through nooks and crannies, having to keep an eye out behind you in case the Dragon was waiting to turn you into sapphire with a single blast, except this time they weren't really sure what they'd find when they turned around.

The slightest movement was enough to turn anybody's head. Indeed, the dangling axes that they used for training exercises leered in the darkness, like they would suddenly come alive of their own volition and start chopping everybody to pieces. The vases, normally a cheerful blue colour, were now a dull grey, and sported cracks that almost looked like teeth…

They reached the other end of the training ground. There was the sound of water. It was coming from the fountain, in the middle of the courtyard beyond the training ground. They approached the fountain with similar caution.

"Well?" said Raimundo.

Clay's shrug this time seemed to say _why are you asking me for?_

Raimundo's folded arms responded: _you're the one leading._

"Doesn't seem to be anything her–"

The fountain erupted.

The water came shooting up, firing swiftly upwards like a geyser. As they'd been half-expecting something to happen, no one was taken by surprise, and they leapt back, each moving into their own offensive stance. But no amount of training could have prepared them for the sight they saw.

The figure landed, body hunched over and both gangly arms swinging loosely, faded grey robes torn and shredded, all dripping a muddy, dirty wet.

It was Master Fung.

Kimiko screamed. He had a huge hole in the right side of his abnormally pale face, a gaping crater from his temple to his cheek. Completely hollow, no bone or skull, no brain, no muscle - just a hollow husk of a body, the skin torn and ragged at the edges, like something had just tore a hole in his face, reached in and ripped the innards out. The left side of his mouth was stuck open in a half-O, missing several teeth.

And the smell…

Despite having a staggering, almost drunken gait, he was just as agile without a brain, and he jumped forwards, Kimiko only just avoiding his swipes. Raimundo stood gaping, completely frozen, and similarly Dojo stammered incoherently, but Clay charged from the side, a full-force body tackle that smashed into the zombie Fung.

The impact was like hitting a piñata.

Maggots exploded everywhere, squirming and making squelching noises and splattering blood and fluids all over Kimiko and Clay. And the _smell_ – the overwhelming, dizzying stench of mud and blood and rotting meat was overpowering. Everyone was shouting, panicking; Kimiko shuddered and scrambled to get the squiggling insects off her. Raimundo finally regained his senses and used the Sword of the Storm to blow the messy insects and husk pieces away. Clay pulled Kimiko up, carrying her as he dashed back to the training grounds – suddenly the axes they'd passed earlier seemed inviting compared to this – and Raimundo quickly followed.

They kept running, only coming to a stop once they were sure they weren't being chased. Everyone was breathing hard.

"Sorry, Kimiko," said Raimundo once he'd got his breath back, "I totally lost it back there. I mean…" He averted his gaze to the ground. "Master Fung," he finished lamely, turning back up with sad eyes. "What if Omi's like that too? What if everyone's like that?"

"Don't worry," said Clay, "we'll figure this out. There must be a Shen Gong Wu that can do the ol' reversal."

"I don't think you'll be doing much of anything, actually."

They turned around.

Jack was floating ten feet in the air _without _his heli-pack. Without the aid of anything, in fact. While he had any number of inventions that could make this par for the course, the ethereal green glow that surrounded his body suggested that his levitation was of a mystical nature, rather than a mechanical one. An unsettling, red-eyed gaze swept across the warriors, a lazy, uncaring stare that made it seem like he wasn't truly acknowledging that anyone else was there. Along with a dreamy smile, this gave the impression that Jack was not quite sane.

He flew closer towards them, though still staying high up and out of reach, and then came to a stop, opening his arms wide, dramatically gesturing to the world at large.

"Like what I did to the place? My new masterpiece!"

"_You_ did this?" Kimiko asked in disbelief. Clay's explanation for events was looking more and more likely, but the timeline must have been really screwed up for Jack to able to do something like all this. Perhaps he'd managed to learn Heylin magic in this timeline.

Still hovering, he leaned forward, letting his arms and legs droop downwards so that they were dangling. His movements were very slow and deliberate, as if he had all the time in the world.

"Fun, huh?" he went on conversationally. "The maggots were a neat touch, eh?"

"Fun?" spat Kimiko, a hair's breadth away from an emotional breakdown. "Fun?!"

"You did that to Master Fung?" Clay added, holding onto Kimiko by the shoulders and stopping her from shaking before she exploded with rage. Somehow, Clay couldn't quite believe it either. He had to hear it directly from Spicer himself.

"Well," Jack replied, tilting his head, still with the glazed, distant look, "you took ages to get here. I was _bored_."

As he spoke, he held up a hand, palm glowing green. Everyone braced for an attack, tried to move, and found, suddenly, that they _couldn't_. They struggled, and though they were able to move their heads, they couldn't move any other part of their body. Jack had not fired a direct attack, but had instead frozen them in place with some kind of green energy shield.

"Still," he continued, "now that you're finally here, maybe you can help me with something." He landed, walking up to the group, completely at ease. And then all of a sudden, his expression changed from dreamy to hostile like a switch had been flicked. He scowled, narrowing his eyes at the closest person to him – Raimundo.

"Where are the Sands of Time?" he growled, his voice clipped, to the point.

"The Sands…?" Raimundo started, temporarily thrown by the abrupt change in demeanour.

"Or perhaps you'd like to join the old man as maggot bait?" Jack hissed, pulling on the edge of Raimundo's hooded top so that he was right in his face, seemingly angered by Raimundo's hesitation.

"Like we'd tell _you_," Raimundo snapped, mirroring Jack's glare with one of his own.

For a long moment Jack held the stare, as if he was contemplating something. Then he blinked, letting Raimundo go. The broad smile returned, though this time with a slight malicious edge.

"Omi…"

He held up his right hand, deliberately showing off the Golden Tiger Claws. "I guess I'll use these and be on my way, then," he said cheerfully, back to his distant smiley self. "Maybe I'll have more 'fun' with some other people first, eh? But don't worry - I'll be back to kill you all _real_ soon."

After floating high into the air, he waved a hand to release them, then sliced the air and jumped into the hole, letting loose a manic, gleeful laugh. Instantly, the overhead storm clouds vanished. The vases in the training grounds sparkled as the sun returned, colour and life returning to the temple as if they had always been there.

"What," said Raimundo, "was that all about?"

"Ah, you've returned," said a voice. "I was just about to… where is Omi?"

Clay blinked in disbelief. "Master Fung?"

"Is it really you?" Kimiko asked, relieved beyond belief to see him alive and whole and not looking like someone had scooped the insides of his head out like ice cream out of a tub.

"Yes, of course…" he said, frowning a little. "Is everything all right?"

"Oh, you're all right!" Dojo rushed to hug the old master on top of his bald head. "Thank goodness!"

"So… all that… It was… an illusion?" Raimundo wondered out loud. He remembered, back when Wuya had first been trying to convince him to switch sides, she had shown him a realistic illusion of how things could turn out if he had accepted her offer. It had been a similar feeling, he realised.

He said as such, and by the end of the explanation Clay was _fuming_. Kimiko was prone to bursts of temper, and true to form, she looked like she was going to self-destruct. But it took a lot to get Clay angry; prized cowboy hats aside, he was normally one of those people that had an endless supply of patience, so it showed how truly upset he'd really been by Fung's supposed death.

"What happened in this illusion?" Master Fung asked, concern coming over his features at the sight of his students becoming so distressed.

Kimiko faltered, and Clay immediately stopped letting loose a string of Texan death threats that he'd promise he'd carry out when he next saw Jack.

Raimundo growled. "Jack happened, that's what happened," he said angrily. He also couldn't believe that Jack had toyed with them like that, just for _fun_. Though, despite a change in the timeline as a possible reason, he still had to wonder what had made Jack abandon his love of machinery in favour of Heylin magic… And if he had learned magic, why didn't he finish them off when he had the chance? Why go to all the bother? He couldn't put his finger on it, but something wasn't quite right. They were missing something.

"Oh, and -" here Raimundo became sheepish and tried to avoid Master Fung's gaze "- Omi's stuck in the past. Or future. Or somewhere."

Master Fung instantly understood. "I warned you not to overuse the Sands of Time," he said sternly.

"Yeah, we know ya did," Clay said, also now looking a little shame-faced, "but it wasn't Omi's fault, honest, it was just actin' real weird. Dojo reckons there might be some info about it in the scroll room."

"Is that so?"

"Yep," Dojo said. "We'd better get cracking on finding Omi, before everyone else goes completely mad!"

"Indeed," said Master Fung, who wasn't going to worry his students further by telling them that he couldn't remember what had happened in the last half hour... except for the flash of green light.


	8. Chapter 7: Worlds Apart

**Chapter 7: Worlds Apart**

* * *

In the world of the Xiaolin warriors, half an hour had passed since Jack's attack, and Clay, Kimiko and Raimundo were now in the scroll room of the Xiaolin temple. The scroll room was where Dashi had catalogued various Xiaolin techniques and chi spells, as well as information on Xiaolin Showdowns and the Shen Gong Wu that initiated them. Surely they would be able to find something on the Sands of Time here?

Raimundo and Kimiko sat in the centre of the room, with ancient parchments sprawled out all over the floor around them, while Clay sat on a chair to the side, at a wooden table, with his head down, deep in thought as he studied a scroll himself. The longer they waited before figuring things out, the more chances the timeline had to get screwed up.

"Hey, guys," said Kimiko, "I think I might have found something." Clay and Raimundo gathered on either side of her, looking over her shoulder.

"Okay," she said, "so according to this, when Grandmaster Dashi tried to use the Sands of Time for the first time, he was transported to different worlds before arriving at a place he called 'Infinity'. After the Sands of Time had created a Time-error..."

"You think that's where lil' Omi is now?" asked Clay. "Infinity?"

"Probably."

"Does it say how the grandmaster got back?"

She shook her head sadly. "It mentions that the incident threw the world out of balance for a while, and that's what drew Wuya out of hiding so he could finally defeat her, but it doesn't say how he got back. Maybe he didn't think it was important."

"Dojo, don't _you_ remember anything more specific about this?" Raimundo asked.

"Eh… it's been fifteen hundred years. That's a long time. And there were quite a few incidents with the other Shen Gong Wu, let me tell you! Ever wonder why the Eye of Dashi is called the _Eye_ of Dashi? 'Cause I remember that one –"

Dojo stopped mid-sentence as Kimiko shrieked: she'd spotted Jack fly through the wall.

"You!" she snarled, jumping up with fists clenched. Both Raimundo and Clay followed suit, glaring at the self-proclaimed evil genius. "You've got a lot of nerve coming back here!"

"No, no, wait!" Jack stammered, zooming high and low, dodging several blasts from the Star Hanabi. "Please, wait! You don't understand! Omi's in trouble!"

As Jack made another dive to avoid the Star's fire, Clay threw a fist through the air, and blinked as his punch went _through_ Jack. It was cold! He stared at his fist. Now that he stopped to think about it… Jack's entire body was ethereal, coloured in a light blue… like a ghost, and though he was still wearing blue versions of his goggles, and a blue, transparent version of his trenchcoat, he had a spectral tail trailing behind him where his legs should have been.

Clay shot a look at Raimundo. Raimundo shrugged, looking somewhat bemused. Before Jack had been solid, just with a green glow. Now he was blue and intangible and... a ghost? What did it mean?

Jack floated backwards timidly, holding his arms out in a placating gesture as Kimiko advanced on him. Clay exchanged another glance with Raimundo, who raised an eyebrow. This was a lot more like the cowardly Jack they knew.

He went down into what was probably a kneeling position for something with no legs, looking like he was close to tears. "P-please don't hurt me!"

Clay frowned, staring down at him with a sombre expression. "I don't think we _can_."

"What do you mean?" Kimiko said, turning her furious glare on Clay. How on earth could he be so calm at a time like this?

"He's a ghost," said Raimundo, though he kept wary eyes on Jack. "Like Wuya. We can't touch him. At least… it seems that way."

Kimiko made a long, frustrated growling noise. "He's just tricking us again!"

"No, you don't understand!" Jack said again, floating up with an urgent, somewhat indignant look in his eyes. "Please, you have to believe me – that wasn't me before! I _swear!_ It wasn't me! I was being possessed, by a demon-ghost! He took control of my body and made me - do things. But then he escaped and killed me and turned _me_ into a ghost, and now he wants the Sands of Time! He's after Omi, Omi needs your help!"

"And we're supposed to believe that, are we?" Kimiko snarled.

"Why should we trust you?" Raimundo added, folding his arms.

"Because he is telling the truth!"

The new voice caused everyone to turn round. Standing in the wooden doorway to the scroll room was none other than Omi!

"Hello, my friends!" he said cheerfully, producing the Sands of Time with a huge grin. He also had the Golden Tiger Claws on his right wrist.

"Omi!" Kimiko gave Omi the biggest hug, and Raimundo punched him playfully on the shoulder. Clay smiled, patting the little monk on his big bald head. And Jack was ecstatic, positively beaming at his arrival.

"You got away!" he exclaimed happily, phasing through the others. He tried to grab Omi in both arms in an attempt to hug him, and went right through him instead.

"Yes," said Omi. He beamed back triumphantly, though he shivered at Jack's touch.

"I knew it!" said Jack, bobbing up and down in excitement as he hovered in the air. "I knew you'd be able to do it!"

Omi looked at Jack with one of the sincerest expressions the others had ever seen him give Spicer. The only other time he had been this courteous towards Jack was when he had invited Jack to have ice cream, after Wuya had been defeated by the second puzzle box. "Thank you, Jack."

"For what?"

"For giving me hope and courage when I needed it the most. And for having faith in me."

"Eh, no problemo. You're the good guy, right? You're not supposed to give up!"

This exchange had earned confused looks from the other Xiaolin monks.

"What's going on, Omi?" Kimiko asked.

"You said somethin' about Jack telling the _truth_?" Clay added.

"Yes," Omi nodded. "I have met that evil demon. I am afraid Jack is telling the truth. He was... murdered." He stared at the floor, shuddering slightly at the memory.

Jack's lips quivered. "There's gotta be a Shen Gong Wu that can undo this, right?"

"Bring the dead to life?" said Dojo. "Not that I know of... The Heart of Jong kinda needs you to have a _body_."

Jack burst into ghostly tears and started wailing. "Ohhhhhhh... it's not fair... Now I'll never be able to take over the world!"

Dojo, who never thought he'd be trying to comfort Spicer of all people, found himself doing just that. "...But, eh, you never know, eh? That Dashi, always a kidder! Maybe he made one that I didn't know about!"

Even Kimiko had cooled down, and offered a pat on the back - though her hand, too, went through his back. Jack looked so pathetic at the moment, one couldn't help but feel sorry for him, and it was hard to stay mad at him when he was dead.

"Maybe you could try to take over the world with other ghosts instead? I mean, they've got to exist, right? If you do, and that other evil ghost does... And there's Wuya, too..."

He sniffled, seeming to calm down a little. "Yeah, maybe..."

"Both Jack and I escaped from the demon spirit," Omi continued when Jack had settled down. He had a very severe expression on his face now. "I do not know where he is from, but he is after the Sands of Time. It is only a matter of time before he will try to take it from us."

"Hmm..." said Raimundo. This explained recent events, to a degree, though he still felt they were all missing something. "I guess we need to find a way to stop him, then. Though... how are we supposed to fight something we can't even touch? I mean, if he's anything like Jack here..."

Omi shook his head. "He is very... solid, for a ghost. I would not have even thought he _was_ one, had he not identified himself as such. We will need as many Shen Gong Wu as we can carry. He is extremely dangerous," he said, and the look on his face became even more grave, if that were possible.

"Jeez, Omi, you look like Master Fung when he's in the-end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it mode," said Raimundo.

"This is no joke!" Omi snapped, startling Raimundo. "He will _kill_ you if he gets the chance!" He looked up at Raimundo sadly. "He will... kill you."

"Omi, are you all right?" asked Kimiko, bending down to hug him again.

"I-I'm okay," said Omi, taking a deep breath. "It was a difficult battle," he said, by way of explanation.

"He's completely insane," Jack added. "He killed me, just like that! And he was inside my head." He shivered in fear at the thought. "It's difficult to explain, but while he was possessing me, I could actually _see_ the insanity. I could kind of see his thoughts...

"Arrrgh!" he said suddenly, his expression becoming urgent again. "Crapcrapcrapcrapcrap!"

"What now?" said Raimundo.

"_Crap!_"

"_What?_ What is it?"

Jack flew round and round the warriors, looking very agitated and spilling his words out all at once. "How much time has passed? The universe! Arrgh! I can't believe I forgot! We need to get to my house pronto!" He flew right into Omi's face. "Quick, quick, QUICK! Use the Tiger Claws! We're running out of time!"

"Woah, woah, woah," said Clay, the patient, reliable rock. "Settle down, there, partner."

"I will _not_ settle down! This is serious! We need to get to my house! I need to get my Time-bot! And then we need to get the hell out of this time!"

"We?" said Clay. "Whaddya need us for?"

"In case Mr. Demon Spirit comes back!"

* * *

In another world, the young boy Link stood on the beach, outside the old man's house, in full green garden gnome regalia as he continued to do his job as a Hero. He raised the Phantom Sword high above his head. It glowed accordingly. He charged the inner energy. The silver hole in the middle of the beach throbbed and pulsed in response. But instead of disappearing, a second hole appeared near (but not right next to) the first one.

"Oops," said Link, bracing for a POK! on the head. When none came, he raised an eyebrow at the old man standing beside him.

"You did it right," said the old man, whose expression held a mix of worried surprise and begrudging respect. "You did the right movements and directed the energy properly, like I told you. The hole should have closed. I don't know why a new one's appeared."

"Shall I try again?"

"What, and make three holes in space-time? Are you daft? We're going to have otherworldly creatures out the wazoo!"

"Something tells me it's a bit late for that."

The original silver hole was swelling and contracting, and then it bulged, looking like it was throwing up. A dog-sized purple dragon, with golden horns and golden wings, shot out of the hole, spouting out angry fire from its nostrils.

"Where's Gnasty Gnorc?" it said, pawing angrily at the sand.

"In there," said Link, pointing to the second silver hole.

"Thanks," said the dragon, jumping into hole two, while hole one throbbed and spat out a green-headed bug creature, with purple eyes and two antennae at the top of its head.

"I am ZIM!"

"Goodie for you," said Link, shoving the weird bug-alien into hole two with an unceremonious kick.

"What are you doing?" the old man hissed. "You don't know where that hole leads!"

"They can't stay here," said Link. "They might be Great Evils for all I know. There's only _one_ of me."

The original hole bulged again, and a grey wolf jumped out. It was a large specimen, its coat mostly grey and white, though it had a green sheen to it. A black and white imp, with green markings on its arms, and wearing a metal helmet, was riding on its back.

"Link?" said the imp, peering at him curiously. It had a female's voice. "Is... that you?"

"Uh..." said Link, his plans to get the both of them inside the other hole completely derailed. "Do I know you?"

Link gaped when the wolf transformed into an older version of himself, complete with green Hero's tunic and green Hero's hat.

"Woah," said Link. "Double time. Except, you're older than me..."

The two Links looked each other, younger Link looking up and adult Link looking down.

"I believe we have an alternate timeline," said the old man. "Two Links, each from a different timeline."

"Alternate timeline?" said the adult Link.

"And you're - I'm a werewolf?" said young Link, grinning widely. His older self looked back in confusion, but he couldn't help the grin. There was some satisfaction in knowing he wasn't the only one who had to wear the ridiculous clothes.

"Is this some kind of time paradox? If I touch you, will we both implode?"

"I see you're just as dense in this timeline too," said the imp. Both Links glared at her.

The old man smiled. "Ah, looks like we have something in common. What's your name, ma'am?"

"Midna."

The old man placed a arm around adult Link and the imp. "Well, Midna, Link - if I could direct your attention to the portal here -"

He pushed them inside.

"Wha...! What'd you go and do that for?" young Link demanded. "We could have used his - my help!"

"_No_ _thank you_. One of you is about all I can stand."

"Well I've had about all I can stand of this!" Link snapped, holding the sword up high again.

The first silver hole pulsed again, and it spat out several objects: a winged lemur, followed by a giant pepperpot with a gun affixed to it, followed by a blue hedgehog, followed by the purple dragon again, followed by several bottles, probably whisky, and a snowy white terrier. These were all promptly swallowed up by the second silver hole, which then _vanished_.

"So," said Link finally, bringing the sword down from its raised position.

"So," said the old man.

"Would you class this as destruction of the universe?"

"Well, _something's_ being destroyed. Mainly my time. I'm not getting any younger over here, that's for sure."

There was a moment when the entire world seemed to throb and pulse, and then _everything_ was swirling in a silvery grey. It only lasted a brief moment, less than a second, but it was enough to make you feel nauseous and disorientated all the same. For that moment, matter and energy had broken down...

"Gramps, that kinda felt like the end of the universe to me."

"Link," said the old man urgently. "Point the sword here one moment." He gestured to a different part of the beach, away from the solitary swirling hole.

Link did so, and the air shimmered briefly, before revealing a purple crystalline structure the size of the old man's house.

"Oshus," said Link, sufficiently unnerved to call the old man by his name. "What is _that_?"

Old Man Oshus shook his head gravely. "I don't know."

"You don't know? _You don't know?_ You just asked me to use the Phantom Sword on it! What happened to all your time-sensing powers?"

"I think it's from another world. Like all those people that came through. That means your sword may not have any effect on it - or not the effect we want, anyway."

"That's just bloody brilliant," growled Link. "Is this Bellum's idea of a sick joke? He stole your powers, didn't he?"

"Yes. Perhaps the monster plans to steal the life-force from other worlds, too."

"And that's even better," said Link sarcastically. "Got any _bad_ news, for a change?"

* * *

In yet another world, Dashi was falling, very far and very fast. It was bound to happen at some point. He had touched the glass piece in the vampire's castle, and he and Dojo had reappeared in mid-air. A problem, yes, but not a huge one when you had a magical dragon who could fly around the world in no time on your side. It did have interesting implications, but, on the other hand, it was best not to think about the possibility of appearing in the middle of a stone wall.

They landed on the ledge of the nearest skyscraper, where Dojo noticed the next problem.

"There's a griffin over there," he said, sniffing as he sensed the magic in the air. "And a boy who's... turned into a red dragon." He blinked. "_And_ a talking dog?"

"Well, don't bother them, then," Dashi said without turning round, trying to get the latest shard to activate. "Try to keep quiet. I know it's a stretch for someone with a mouth as big as yours, but please try to manage it."

"Er, right," said Dojo, watching a floating hoverboard zoom past. There were two humans riding the hoverboard. One of them fired a net at the griffin, from some kind of bazooka. The griffin was ensnared, and they swooped down to grab the egg it had been guarding. The red dragon, who was a human-sized version of the European type, slapped its forehead and rushed after the eggnappers, the grey dog riding on its back.

"Hmm," said Dashi, watching the ensuing mid-air battle for the griffin's egg. "You might not need to shape-shift here. The humans seem aware of magical creatures, at any rate."

"But we're in the middle of a city." The Dojo of the present day might have recognized the city below as New York City, and that they were, in fact, on top of the Empire State Building, but, as it was, this Dojo frowned. Like Wuya, he was terribly suspicious of anything technologically advanced. He had yet to live through fifteen hundred years of human history. "How do we know the people down there don't eat dragons?"

"That won't be a problem," said Dashi, pointing to the newest beam of light, which stayed high in the air, leading south from the city in a straight horizontal line. "Because we're not going down. Let's go."

Dojo flew high up, out across the ocean; the next piece was also in mid-air. He stopped in the air as Dashi reached out to grab it. This time, instead of teleporting Dashi and Dojo right away, the four purple shards rose up, floating round and round, encircling Dojo so that they formed a ring around him, like a planet.

"What's going on?" said Dojo, too afraid to move in case it teleported only his head, or something equally nasty. "Are you doing that?"

"No, not me..." said Dashi.

The purple pieces each fired a beam of light at Dojo. After the ensuing flash of light subsided, Dashi and Dojo found themselves in a world where the background was pink, and all that existed _was_ the pink background, apart from some pearly pink bubbles that floated around. The glass pieces fell back into Dashi's hand, and he leapt off Dojo, rightly assuming that there was the same kind of non-standard physics as in the dimension of Infinity.

Dashi looked at the latest piece of glass. This piece, the one he'd just picked up, was a lot bigger than the previous ones. Which, in itself wasn't unusual compared to what else had been going on, but... the other ones were larger too?

"Dashi," said Dojo, returning to his smaller size. "Do you know _why_ we're picking up these pieces of glass?"

"Not really," Dashi said, even though he had the feeling that something else had purposely activated the four glass fragments and had teleported them here. "It feels like they've originated from our world, though. You know how you said it felt like a Shen Gong Wu and not a Shen Gong Wu? Well, now that we've got more of them, I feel the same way. And take a look at this."

He sat down on the pink floor, taking out all the purple pieces he had collected so far. He had four of them, now. They were the exact same shape as when he'd found them, every jagged edge in place, but whereas before they'd been small enough to all fit in the palm of his hand, now they each were the size of his hand.

"The first piece was much smaller before. Do you remember when I pulled it out of the air? And the other two were smaller as well..."

"So... they're getting bigger," said Dojo. "All by themselves..."

Dashi blinked, suddenly aware of a presence, and he shot round to face a creature parting through a mass of pink bubbles. A pink dinosaur, a theropod-like creature about four metres high, ambled into view. It had small, decorative wings on its back, and was breathing in and out very slowly. There was an air of calm intelligence about the beast that made Dashi think of a blue whale - massive and impressive, but also quite passive.

"You teleported us here?" said Dashi, completely unafraid.

"Yes," said its growl.

"But you couldn't do it before?"

"No," it whined.

"Did I need to collect four of them first?"

"Yes," it said, and this time there was a satisfied glint to its expression that seemed to indicate it was impressed.

The world seemed to swirl to grey for a moment, before returning to its usual pink, and the dinosaur growled aggressively.

"Yeah, I know," said Dashi. "It's getting worse, isn't it?"

And right before his eyes, the pieces all shifted size. It wasn't a gradual thing - one moment they were one size, and the next they were bigger. Just like that. If things kept going like this, he wouldn't be able to carry them any more.

He looked up sharply as the environment darkened, the colours in the background changing easily to a darker purple, and then there was another dinosaur, a blue sauropod that stood on all fours and with an elaborate head-crest.

"I see," said a voice. "The blue one controls time, and that pink one controls... space."

It was Chase Young - but not as Dashi remembered him.


	9. Chapter 8: Where We Stop, Nobody Knows

**Shadir & necowaffer** - So much thanks to you both for reviewing. This chapter, I think, marks an important turning point, where the story becomes less of a mystery, and more of a suspense. I hope it was worth the wait. :)

* * *

**Chapter 8: Where We Stop, Nobody Knows**

* * *

Jack Spicer's basement was a veritable mad scientist's lair. Glass beakers with bubbling, dangerous looking liquids; spanners, screws and screwdrivers of varying sizes; multi-coloured wires, soldering iron and a blowtorch; and various Shen Gong Wu, including the Shard of Lightning were all splayed out across several long tables. Industrial piping twisted across the lab's ceiling, and, since his specialty was robots and mechanics, there were a couple of unfinished bots, with missing limbs and open circuitry displayed where Jack had still not completed them. It seemed sad that this was where Jack spent most of his time, but perhaps even sadder was that he was now a ghost and wouldn't be able to continue doing what he loved most: building robots.

As it was, Jack frantically rushed around. One of the tables had a PC connected to several modules via USB. He couldn't touch anything physically, but it soon became apparent that he didn't need to. The objects responded and flared into life, reacting to a poltergeist of electronics. It seemed he could even use the Shen Gong Wu, as he had the Eye of Dashi attached to the Time-bot, using it as a power source as he had done for his very first time machine. At least, then, he was actually in a better position than Wuya, who was unable to affect anything in her ghostly state, and had to resort to getting others to do her work for her.

"What on earth's the matter?" said Raimundo, following Jack whoosh madly by, in a blur.

"The universe! It's going to be destroyed!"

_Ah, _thought Raimundo_._ _That explains the end-of-the-world manic dashing, then._

"Are you sure?" he said out loud.

"_Yes I'm sure_ _dammit_!"

There was a ding! from the computer, and a couple of graphs appeared on the display monitor, all depicting what looked like ECG measurements, though the waveforms were too erratic and had far too many peaks and troughs to be heartbeats; clearly Jack had been measuring something else. The noise had the effect of calming Jack instantly, and there was an expectant silence as he looked between several of the graphs on the screen carefully, using the mouse in his poltergeist way to switch pages and compare them to each other.

"Oh dear," he said finally, shaking his head. "That... That can't be right…"

"What?" said Clay.

"They're all the same."

"So?"

Jack spoke at a mile a minute again. "The waves should all be different. I didn't realise before but they're remnants of old timelines. But from this point onwards, about three weeks ago, they're all exactly the same - and I mean _exactly_ - and they all cut off at the same point... which means... crap... This has happened before! This whole situation – everything! It's all happened before!"

"What do you mean?" Kimiko asked.

"We're stuck in a time loop! That's why they're all the same! But..." Jack calmed down again. "How is that possible? How can the end of the universe cause a time loop? There's nowhere for the time streams to go, because time doesn't exist after that point..."

"In English?" said Raimundo.

"It's the equivalent of asking water to flow back up a waterfall. Or... or, like an on-off switch on an open electrical circuit. The loop can't _loop_, the destruction of time 'switches' the flow of time off. But somehow..." He glanced at his computer screen. "In five minutes' time... Something happens to make time crash, and then reset."

"Five minutes?" exclaimed Omi. Suddenly the reason for Jack's panicked behaviour had become all too clear, and the other monks all shared Omi's look of surprised fear. "We have _five_ minutes?"

"And this happens over and over again?" said Kimiko, over Omi's hysterical cries of "Arrrgh!". "So that means we've had this conversation before?"

"Yup," said Jack grimly. "Just imagine: I get killed over and over and over again."

"It's like a hamster ball gettin' stuck in a lil' ol' rut," said Clay. "It runs and runs, but it don't go nowhere."

"Yeah, we need to find a way to get the hamster rolling smoothly again, otherwise it'll stay stuck indefinitely. Huh," said Jack, looking at Clay with newfound respect. "That's actually a good way of describing it. The country hick actually gets it."

Clay shrugged. "Sometimes the best way is the simplest," he said. "What do we do about it?"

"The Sands of Time," said Jack simply.

"But... it is not working properly," said Omi, staring at it sadly.

"Yeah, and now we know why," said Kimiko. "Can't we send a message to our past selves, or something? So we can do something about it sooner?"

"No time," said Jack, though he did make the computer's keyboard come to life of its own accord, and it hammered away. "My Time-bot isn't working properly either. If only I'd realised sooner! That stupid ghost stopped me before I could notice...!"

"Three weeks ago," said Raimundo, thoughtful cap on. "That was about when the Sands of Time became active..."

It suddenly felt very, very cold. A chilly wind was coming from the direction of the door at the top of the stairs leading into Jack's basement.

"Humph," said a cool voice, and Jack gasped at the figure that floated through the door. "I should have guessed you'd be all here."

"Ah," Jack shrieked, "that's him…! That's the ghost…"

"_You_!" Omi snapped, and his eyes flared with anger. "Demon spirit!"

"Yeah. Me. The demon."

The ghost floated all the way down, over the banister, to land on the floor of the basement, right in the centre, between the tables. Omi had been right - he certainly didn't look like your stereotypical ghost. Powerfully built, he stood tall, at least a head taller than Clay, and he was wearing a black and white jumpsuit, with a cape and white boots to match. Together with the 'D' insignia emblazoned on his chest, the whole outfit made him look more like a supervillain from out of a comic book.

He did have pointy ears, and a pale green complexion, and white hair that flared like fire, flickering atop his pale green head. Compared to Jack, this demon-ghost was indeed solid-looking and substantial, not see-through at all - though he did emit a strong, white glow. His red eyes quickly scanned the basement, before regarding them all with an apathetic, almost condescending look, the very same cold, detached stare which was instantly recognisable to those who had been tricked by the zombie illusion.

Everyone tensed, half-expecting him to freeze them in that weird green energy shield, half-expecting him to flat out attack, all preparing to react accordingly, but he did neither.

"Hello again," he said instead. "I'm glad you're all here. Now that I've escaped, I can kill you all in one blast. Won't that be fun?"

"Pass," said Kimiko. "I think we already established that your definition of the word 'fun' is just a teensy bit _skewed_."

"Suit yourself. I know _I'll_ enjoy it." Immediately following this statement, the ghost carelessly threw a green energy blast from his right hand.

And then, Jack's house exploded.

Or, it might have done, had Clay not held up the Reversing Mirror.

The blast was reflected right back, forcing the surprised ghost to duck out of the way of his own attack, and the tables behind him were instantly incinerated, along with all the bits and pieces that were on them. He lost the smug, glazed look, instead appearing to be irritated as he suddenly vanished, and seconds later Clay was sent reeling, crashing into another table from an invisible punch.

"Oh, no," said Raimundo, watching helplessly as Kimiko fired the Star Hanabi at mid-air and was knocked down from behind. He pulled out the Falcon's Eye, motioning to Omi to quickly move out of the way of an oncoming attack.

"Wait, wait, wait!" said Jack, who was once again looking more and more hysterical by the minute. He was desperate to stop the fighting, but the demon ghost wasn't going to change his actions. He was there to kill them all, and if it took the end of the universe to do it... Jack knew that this ghost was most definitely _that_ insane.

He faced Raimundo. "We don't have time for this! Everyone needs to stop! If we're stuck in a loop, then all of this has happened already... _Why_ does the timeline suddenly stop? Why did the hamster get stuck in the first place? It must be something that happens here!"

"We're a bit busy fighting for our lives now!" Raimundo yelled, coming to a mutual decision with Omi by silently nodding with him. He fired up the Sword of the Storm at the same time as Omi fired the Orb of Tornami, and the elements of wind and water mixed together. The result was a chilling ice storm, one that swept the entire room and forced the ghost into becoming visible, before slamming the demonic apparition against the opposite wall and freezing his body in place. "We'll have to second-guess ourselves later!"

"You… fools..." the ghost ground out. "There won't _be_ a later." There was a green glow from the iced wall, and ice shards were sent flying in all directions. "I've had enough of these games," he snarled, floating down to the ground with blasts formed in both hands. Omi and Raimundo glared right back. But the circular energy in the ghost's hands quickly increased in size, growing at a phenomenal rate...

Jack didn't even see which Shen Gong Wu he'd grabbed with his powers, he was flying so fast towards Omi.

And Omi felt an uncomfortable urge to shiver, but ignored it as he held an elbow in front of his face to shield himself from the bright green light. Was this finally it?

But while the explosion swallowed everything in its path, Omi felt it run _through_ him, as though it had completely missed him. After the blast had subsided, he shivered and spotted Jack leaving his body. He realised that Jack had saved him by turning him intangible at the last moment.

Jack's house, however, had been completely destroyed, with nothing left but a smoking crater in its place to show that anything had been there at all. At the epicentre, the ghost laughed, looking disturbingly proud of his handiwork. He smirked knowingly at Jack and Omi, as if he'd known all along that Jack would save Omi.

It was then that Omi realised that nothing else could have survived. "They're… they're dead…" he stammered in shock, taking a shaky step back.

"So am I!" Jack exclaimed, phasing an arm through Omi to remind him of that fact. "But we've got to get out of here! Don't you get it? We have to fix it so none of this ever happens! Otherwise it'll be stuck like this forever!"

He hovered the Sands of Time out of Omi's robes, and Omi instantly brightened. Jack was right – if they could just go back in time to when the Sands of Time became active, maybe they could stop all this from happening… If it would just work this one time, they might still have a chance to be saved...

Omi held up the Sands of Time, and Jack flew back into his body. The flame-headed ghost growled, glaring a _not so fast!_ glare at Omi as he fired a tiny ectoplasmic blast at his leg, just before Omi activated the Wu. Omi travelled back to three weeks ago – or at least to what he thought was three weeks ago – and realised he had also taken the murderous ghost along.

The ghost jerked on the green rope he had attached to Omi. Omi punched the Fist of Tebigong down to cut through the ectoplasm and leapt to his feet, immediately locking eyes, into a glaring contest. Omi entertained the idea of using the Orb of Tornami, but, as he held it up, he saw the smug look in the ghost's eyes. The demon spirit chuckled darkly, seeming to have expected Omi to do this, too, and he charged his hands, green energy emanating from them.

Suddenly, Jack reappeared, this time with the Shard of Lightning. He tried to freeze the spirit, but unsuccessfully; for some reason it didn't appear to work on him.

"Nice try," the ghost sneered, hands still crackling with green power, "but you're out of time."

"We shall see," said Omi, now holding up the Sands of Time again.

"No, wait…!" said Jack, realising his fatal error far too late.

And time shattered.

* * *

And time shattered.

"_Please_ tell me the next time is going to be different," said voice one.

"Well -" began voice three.

"Because that was exactly the same as the previous loop," voice one stated flatly.

"_And_ the one before that," voice two was quick to add.

"Of course it was," said voice three smugly. "It wouldn't be a loop if it didn't repeat itself, now, would it?"

"Don't get cocky with us," voice one warned. "We granted you with your powers. We can just as easily take them away, if we so choose."

"Didn't you say you weren't going to complain?" said voice three, sounding amused, not fazed by the threat in the slightest.

"But...!"

"Didn't you?"

"Yes..." said voice one quietly, in defeat.

"But for every loop that goes unchecked, the stability of reality is compromised even further!" voice two snapped in panicked frustration. "The fabric of reality can't take this much longer! Not just this world but _all_ worlds are in danger of being destroyed forever! And you do not appear to be_ doing anything about it_!"

"Are you saying you want me to interfere directly with events?" voice three asked, still amused. "Because that would be going against my directive, O great employers of mine."

"That never stopped you before..." voice one grumbled.

"Listen to me," said voice three, finally beginning to show signs of irritation. "You have charged me with managing the time streams of our own world, and due to the extreme circumstances which you yourselves have just acknowledged, this responsibility has temporarily extended to this world as well. Show some faith in your decision, and let me do what you have chosen me to do! I'll make my move when the time is right, and not a moment before."

Voice two made a noise, as if about to ask when that time was, but voice three continued.

"Besides, who's to say I haven't already put the necessary pieces into place?"

* * *

Chase was... different. He was no longer wearing the calm, flowing robes of a monk. Instead, a spiky, hazardous, rigid armour was in its place, and the bright, hopeful look he used to have had been replaced by a shrewd, cold, calculating gaze.

So, he'd drunk the Lao Mang Long soup, had he? Dashi narrowed his eyes. What monstrous form had the potion bestowed upon him? What dark powers had he gained? What terrifying acts might he have committed, without a conscience to hold him back?

More to the point: how could Chase have been so _stupid?_

"Chase," he said, mildly surprised to find that the name had come out as an aggressive growl. He'd also automatically adopted a fighting stance, one that he'd usually reserved for Wuya or her minions. It was because he could feel the Heylin magic, so strong and so deep, from within Chase, and, if he was being honest with himself, it frightened him, because it was _worse_ than Wuya. Dojo slithered inside Dashi's robes, clearly not wanting to tempt fate by being in Chase's line of sight.

"Without a soul, are we?"

"You're as well-informed as ever, Dashi. But I'm not here to fight you."

Dashi didn't stop glaring, and he let his elemental chi flare up brilliantly, intending to show Chase the full wrath of his own power. It was betrayal, pure and simple. Even if, for him, it hadn't happened yet, he was still furious just the same. How could he have allowed this to happen?

Chase blinked slowly, but otherwise didn't react.

"You're not here to fight me?" Dashi asked after a dangerous pause. "You've got nothing to do with the collapse of the universe, then?"

"No. Why would I want the universe destroyed?"

"Why indeed?" said Dashi, tone harsh and cold.

For his part, Chase wasn't used to dealing with an extremely angry Dashi, since the monk was usually so easygoing. He'd had to refrain himself from taking a step back from Dashi's display of power, which was also very unlike him. He'd never known Dashi to reveal his full power, not even against Wuya. It was gratifying to know that the great Grandmaster Dashi perceived him to be a threat greater than Wuya, but right now that was actually working against him.

A bit of a reflex reaction had occurred; usually the presence of such impressive chi in a warrior greatly enticed Chase. But the thought of taking Dashi's chi and turning him into one of his jungle cat servants was quickly extinguished, firstly by the fact that Chase couldn't change the past if he wanted to preserve his timeline. Secondly, there was no denying that Dashi himself was powerful, extremely skilled, and also somewhat unpredictable. He always had a trick up his sleeve. Chase had fifteen hundred years over the grandmaster and he _still_ wasn't sure how a fight between them would pan out. He had no desire to find out, either.

Chase sighed, hoping he could get the message through to Dashi that they're weren't enemies here. If he couldn't convince Dashi to help...

"As a matter of fact, I need your help to fix it," he said.

"I'm listening," said Dashi, and while he dropped his defensive stance, his face was of the _try anything and I'll kick your ass _kind, and his aura was still radiating waves of power.

Chase paced back and forth very slowly, and Dashi turned his head to follow him. Chase paused before speaking.

"_Grandmaster_ Dashi," he said.

"Grandmaster?" said Dashi flatly. Where had that come from, all of a sudden?

"The greatest Xiaolin Dragon that ever lived, possessing combat skills like no other before him, and no other after him." Another pause, and then Chase stopped and faced him. "You created magical objects with your powerful chi. Fifteen hundred years ago, you founded the Xiaolin temple..."

"Fifteen hundred...?" Well, _that_ had come as a surprise. Chase was from that far in the future? "You're from fifteen hundred years in the future?"

"At least, you _should_ have done," Chase went on, "but instead you're here, inside these creatures' pocket dimension."

Finally, Dashi relaxed a little, his gaze softening ever so slightly, and, with a sigh, he let his energy disappear. In spite of everything, it seemed as though Chase was here to restore the timeline, too, even if it was only to save his own future. Apparently his little trip across time and space had changed this future Chase's timeline.

"Are you saying _I_ changed the timeline? By going after these pieces?"

"No. Not directly."

"Explain."

"A Time-error changed the timeline."

_Oh no..._ "The one I caused?"

"Yes and no," said Chase, "It was like the one you caused in Infinity, but when it reopened its points in space-time changed, and that changed the timeline. It changed your present and my present. Our world no longer exists; it's completely collapsed. And now the space-time altering effects of the Time-error has spread to other worlds, too."

"Your present," said Dashi, very slowly.

Now it was Chase who narrowed his eyes. "Dashi. I drunk the soup because Hannibal Bean offered it to me. He told me that the only way I could be the greatest Dragon of them all was to surrender my soul and join the Heylin side."

Dashi scowled back. "Why are you telling me this?"

"Because now that you know about the future, you need to make sure events play out as they did, otherwise that future will be changed."

"And what if I _want_ the future to be changed?"

"Then you risk a time paradox, and the end of the universe."

Chase paused, and then continued: "After drinking the soup, I turned on Bean and sealed him in the Yin-Yang world. You and I, we battled for a while. And then, you sealed me away. On the day of the Heylin Eclipse, you will seal me away."

He paused again, remembering. Back then, Dashi had been more disappointed than angry. He'd actually tried to convince him to come back to the Xiaolin side, and now Chase realised that the whole time while they were fighting, he must have been holding back.

"These events must occur. You must restore the timeline, otherwise everything that ever was, everything that ever will be, will disappear."

"I know that!" Dashi snapped. It was ironic how Chase wanted to do the heroic thing and save the universe, and he, Dashi, wanted to do the selfish thing and save his friend. But as much as he wanted to save Chase... it probably couldn't be done anyway. He wouldn't know for sure until he knew what was going on, but...

Dashi shut his eyes for a quick moment, sighing deeply before opening them again. "Okay. I'll help you. I don't trust you, but I'll help you."

"You're not going to try and change my timeline?"

"No!" said Dashi, sounding indignant. "But I do hope, for your sake, that you're not tricking me in any way." His face had that _don't mess with me or you'll regret it_ look again.

"No, Grandmaster. It may be difficult to believe, but I do have a sense of honour."

"If you say so," said Dashi sceptically. "Okay. Let's get cracking, then."

The two dinosaurs, who up until now had remained silent, both made growling noises that sounded like approval, though their looks said _it's about bloody time_.

"Hmm," said Dashi with a sigh, looking up at the blue dinosaur. "Forgot about them. They're dinosaurs? Dragons? Aliens? What are they?"

"They are guardian spirits of their world's space-time," said Chase. "They're worried about the worlds coming to an end."

"Really? Did they tell you that? They don't seem to be the talking type."

"Just a guess."

"Right," said Dashi, who knew all about guesses that turned out to be right. He folded his arms. "All right, so you mentioned the Time-error, in Infinity. Do you know where its secondary points are now? Where it leads to?"

"We can't go there any more," said Chase, secretly relieved that Dashi was taking this seriously. Sometimes he could be so laid-back you'd wonder whether he was doing anything at all. Perhaps the anger he'd shown earlier had something to do with it. "It leads to the exact point when our universe is destroyed."

"Then I can't close it," said Dashi. "The magic needs to be at both ends."

"Don't you need the Shen Gong Wu, anyway?" asked Chase. "I don't sense the Sands of Time anywhere nearby..."

"I have a feeling these purple pieces will do the trick," said Dashi, pulling a couple out.

"What are they?" said Chase. "They feel like Shen Gong Wu, but they have a strange energy about them. Like static electricity."

"They've been teleporting me through space-time. I think I can use them in place of the Sands of Time. Just need to put some of my chi into them. The real question is, if I'm going to try something, at which point in space and time do I do it? Which universe?"

The two dinosaurs growled, and opened a portal, and, taking this as a kind of cue, Chase and Dashi went through.

In this world, this dimension, they were walking through darkness. But it wasn't the empty blackness of Nothingness. There were pieces of purple glass hanging in the air everywhere, floating against a dark backdrop. It was as if someone had smashed a window, and time had been paused at the exact moment the glass had flown across. Only, the window had been an infinite size.

"This... doesn't really help," said Dashi.

* * *

The silver portal opened and the griffin's egg rolled onto a shiny metallic floor. Unlike the forest containing the parental bird, this was not a safe environment for an egg to be in. Noxious fumes belched out of the row of large chimneys that formed a skyline across the horizon, tainting the air above with the yellow smog of pollution. A choking acrid smell, and the beeps and sounds and flickering lights of factories and machinery hard at work, were always present.

The egg had fallen onto a conveyor belt, and was rapidly approaching a spinning metal saw at the conveyor belt's end! Jake Long, now in the form of a red dragon, swooped down and grabbed the egg, avoiding flamethrowers and lightning rods on the other side of the conveyor belt. Fu Dog was on his back, advising him to rise higher.

Flying up to a higher ledge did not bring any refuge from danger, as a robot was standing on the edge. The robot resembled a pig, but unlike a pig, it shot out several balls the size of watermelons from its stomach. Under the barrage, Jake ducked and weaved, but was hit in the side by a final shot. The egg dropped, but miraculously didn't break because it had been extremely close to the floor, instead landing gently and rolling away to a stop.

Jake landed, rearing himself up on two feet, and he breathed in deeply, preparing to let loose a stream of fire at the robot, when a spinning blur of blue whizzed past him and slammed in the robot, forcing it into the wall behind. The blue ball bounced backwards from the impact, uncurling into a two-legged hedgehog with red sneakers, landing on the floor. The robot's casing fell apart with a pop, and a chicken flew up out of its remains.

For a second, the blue hedgehog stared at Jake and Fu Dog.

Then the hedgehog was gone.

Jake transformed back to his human form, and picked up the egg. Both he and Fu Dog were magical creatures, so they were both used to peculiar things like otherworldly portals, but it was still a bit of a pain being pulled from world to world like this. No matter what happened, he couldn't let the egg break, otherwise all the world-hopping up till now would have been for naught. As the American Dragon, Jake was protector of all magical creatures in New York City. It was his duty to return the griffin egg to its rightful owner - a mother griffin who had made the not very smart decision of making her nest on top of the Empire State Building.

That was the noble reason for looking after the egg, the one he would tell his grandpa. He was a literal dragon in training. His grandpa was the former dragon protector of China, and, having retired, was now teaching Jake how to be a respectable dragon guardian of the magical world. Just like Omi, sometimes Jake's over-confidence got him into trouble, which was why his grandpa was there to make sure he didn't muck things up _too_ badly, a sort of dragon version of Master Fung.

The _real_ reason Jake was doing all this, though, was so that he had something to brag about to his two human friends when he got back to his home world. Their school assignment to look after a chicken's egg would be nothing compared to _his_ adventures.

Ha!

This was assuming, of course, he could get back home.

"Oh, man," he said out loud, almost choking on the foul smoke. "How long do you think this'll go on for?"

"Until whatever's causing these disturbances is fixed," said Fu Dog. He'd been on a few time travelling trips of his own, by himself, and had long since learned it was best to accept the situation as it was and not make a big fuss. Things were bound to go back to normal sooner or later. "I'm sure gramps'll be workin' on it. In the meantime, why don't we sit back and enjoy the _lovely_ scenery?"

"Ugh, no thanks. Think I preferred the vampire world. Bring on the next portal."

And, as if by magic, another Time-error appeared.

"Sweet," said Jake.


	10. Chapter 9: The Final Loop

**Chapter 9: The Final Loop**

* * *

Another time loop started, went through its motions, and ended, and time shattered.

Again.

"This is ridiculous!" exclaimed the first voice, whom we shall now call Eyeball One.

"How many times are we going to have to go through this?" snapped the second voice, whom we shall now call Eyeball Two.

"As many as it takes," said Voice Three calmly. The third voice was not a floating eyeball, so we'll just keep on calling it Voice Three.

Eyeball Two was beside himself, shaking in the air with visible rage. "But-but-but-but-he-he-he-he-he... HE! The HE-ness of this situation is utterly, utterly deplorable!"

"He-ness?" said Voice Three.

"He escaped again, and you let it happen! Again!" _He _was an aberration. _He _was an abomination. He was a stain on the window of time, he was a foul menace who needed to be - to be chopped up into little pieces, burnt right down and his ashes strewn across the many worlds, but even death would be too kind, he needed to be tortured and flayed and electrocuted and bludgeoned and forced to wear a pink tutu -

"Are you done yet?"

"Did I say all that out loud?" Eyeball Two wondered.

"Yes, you certainly did." Three sighed. "And you were both doing so well with the not-complaining, too."

"How can we not say anything?" Eyeball One demanded. "We're being forced to endure the same thing over and over and over again!"

"Forced? It was your idea to keep a close watch on me for this particular event. Following accusations of meddling in the timeline in our own world, I believe."

"Um, well, yes," said Eyeball One. "We didn't realise how... monotonous it would turn out to be."

"As I recall, that was why you gave the job to me in the first place, yes?"

"Oh do shut up," said Eyeball Two. "Are you going to save reality or not?"

"Of course. It just requires patience, and a calm, collected mind."

The implication was clear, but Eyeball Two didn't rise to the bait this time.

"Go on, then," he said.

The floating, high-tech screen that the three entities had gathered around to watch the time loop on automatically reset itself, to show the Xiaolin warriors preparing to do their chores on that day once more.

"_**Stand on your marks," said Omi. "Set yourselves."**_

"Commence with chores," said Eyeball One dully, at the same time as Omi did on-screen.

"Gong Yi Tanpai," said Eyeball Two, equally as dully.

_**Omi leapt up, using the Third Arm Sash to wipe a window clean.**_

"Lotus Twister," said Eyeball One together with Kimiko on-screen.

"And now she crouches down and reaches underneath the couch," said Eyeball Two. "Ugh, I've had it. I can't take any more! Let's go!"

"Yes, _do_ let us know when you've saved reality," said Eyeball One brusquely.

"You're leaving?" said Voice Three.

"Yes!" they both chimed. They disappeared in a flash.

And just like that, Three was left to watch events unfold by himself. _As it should be_, he thought.

_**Raimundo**** looked at the dishes piled up in the sink.** _

_**But he didn't use the Shroud of Shadows. Because a silver vortex appeared above the plates, and it swallowed them up.**_

This was it…

_**"Woah... freaky," Raimundo said, backing away apprehensively. But then suddenly the vortex vanished, as if it had never been there at all, and Raimundo grinned. This was convenient. **_

_**"All done!" he yelled.**_

"Humph," said Three, "leave it to those two to miss the most important part." That Time-error meant a world of difference.

Because _now_ was the time to act.

* * *

Ever relentless, and regardless of Raimundo's discovery, the new loop still continued along its path. The moment that the Sands of Time activated came and went, and from there the loop just kept on going. Fed up of the Xiaolin monks always winning, Jack completed his Time-bot to even the odds. Its first task was to help Jack get to the Shard of Lightning just before it had become active. The Xiaolin warriors arrived at the noisy port only to find Jack and Wuya already there.

"Wow," said Raimundo, staring at the clock-shaped robot beside Jack. "What are you calling this one, Jack? The Clock-bot? Real original!"

"Time-bot," Jack huffed, "Time-bot! Get it right." To his delight the warriors were looking confused, no doubt wondering how Jack had been able to get to the Shard of Lightning first when they were the ones possessing time-traveling powers.

"Ya didn't make a time machine robot, did ya?" said Clay, sighing. "Because going by how well that other time doo-hickey of yours went…"

"This is an even better version!" said Jack. "I've fixed the problems with the previous one, so there!"

"Being able to return to one's own time…?" said Omi, narrowing his eyes.

"Shut up. I got here before you guys, didn't I? Now we're even Stevens!"

"No way are we even," Raimundo said.

"Ready to get your butt kicked for the umpteenth time?" said Kimiko.

"No, not really," Jack said, holding up the Shard of Lightning high. Wuya phased into his body temporarily, as time froze.

Jack removed the Sword of the Storm from Raimundo's hands, as well as several other Wu from the other warriors – the most important of which was the Sands of Time - all the while snickering. Omi used the Orb of Tornami all the time, he'd definitely be missing that one.

After putting the now full bag of booty down next to the Time-bot, he turned around and took a moment to sneer at the immobilized warriors. "Ha! Who's getting their butt kicked now?" He knew they couldn't hear him, but it was still fun to taunt them while they were helpless.

He grinned at the possibilities. "Maybe I should go back in time and steal all the Wu I should have got!"

"Jack!" Wuya hissed, appearing in front of Jack's face so suddenly that he let out a startled yelp. She sounded very visibly annoyed whilst at the same time trying to convey a sense of urgency. "How many times must I tell you? Do_ not_ use the Time-bot together with the Shard of Lightning. If the Shard's power is still in effect when you use the Sands of Time, all of time freezes."

"You worry too much, old hag. With these two – the Shard of Lightning and my Time-bot – there's no one that can stop my evilness!" He added a dramatic laugh for emphasis, but Wuya was all the more unimpressed, growling and shaking her ghostly fists in frustrated impatience instead.

"Didn't you hear me, you foolish boy? All of time freezes. _Everything_. It happened with Dashi before! The entire universe comes to a grinding halt. That's not evil. That's just _stupid_."

"Oh come on. That's impossible. You're exaggerating."

Jack pushed a couple of buttons on the back of the Time-bot, despite Wuya's cries of, "No, wait!"

And time didn't just freeze. It cracked into a million shards and _broke_.

* * *

_Of course_, Wuya mused, _stupid is what Jack does best_. Still, at least they were still alive. That was the main thing. Sure, it didn't make sense that even though time had shattered, Jack and herself were still able to move around – and in Jack's case, breathe, for that matter – but she wasn't going to question a temporal conundrum when it worked to her advantage.

The question was: what to do now?

Everything was white, as far as the eye could see. You couldn't even tell which way was up or down. There was no horizon, just all this empty whiteness, like they were standing in the middle of an infinite blank page. Frankly, this was the mother of all Jack's greatest screw-ups. There would be naught that could top this. Ever.

"Um," said Jack, seeming to reach the same conclusion. His Time-bot's space-time field generator had lost power. Even worse, all of the Shen Gong Wu he'd stolen had disappeared. All he had left was the Shard of Lightning, which also wasn't working. He held the blue orb up in one hand; it had dulled, looking like a black-and-white version of itself, as if the colour had been drained out of it.

"What's wrong with it?"

"The Shard of Lightning doesn't work on time paradoxes, you fool," said Wuya, whose rage had taken the form of the calm moment before the storm unleashed its full fury. "The Shen Gong Wu are all about chi - the movement of energy throughout the universe. They can't work if there's no movement. We must be outside the flow of time itself here."

Well... that explained why his Time-bot wasn't working. In order to generate enough power to move through time, Jack had needed an infinite supply of energy, so he had used the Eye of Dashi as a power source, but if Shen Gong Wu didn't work when they were outside Time... Well, he and Wuya were well and truly stuck here. The other Shen Gong Wu must have remained behind inside the timeline, presumably.

Jack bit his lip, looking like he was on the verge of bawling, or cracking up with hysterical laughter, or possibly both, when he suddenly gasped.

"There's another Shen Gong Wu here!"

Wuya rolled her eyes in an _oh great he's going crazy already _way. "No, there isn't."

Jack pulled out a bleeping device from inside his black jacket. "My Detecto-bot says otherwise." The Time-bot's propulsion was still functioning even if its time-travelling ability wasn't, so he latched the Detecto-bot onto the back of the clocked-shaped robot.

"You and your infernal machines! It's clearly defective! I can't sense any Wu. Why on earth would Dashi hide a Shen Gong Wu in a place that requires you to break the entire universe to get there?"

Jack shrugged. "_Something's_ making this go off. Might as well see what it is. Maybe we can un-break everything and get back home with it. It beats staying here and doing nothing for all eternity."

Wuya couldn't argue with the last part, and so she followed Jack as he in turn followed the Detecto-bot's signal. After five minutes, they came to a wooden door, coloured white with a green metallic tinge to it. It was standing in the middle of nowhere, and as Jack moved round to check it, he saw that there was nothing behind it. It was quite an ordinary door, otherwise. Yet, the Detecto-bot always pointed to it like a compass to north, even when he removed it from the Time-bot and walked with it round to the other side. He tentatively reached for the knob, half-expecting the door to open of its own volition, but it didn't. In fact, even after wrestling with the knob for a couple of minutes, he found he couldn't open it.

"Well, that's weird," said Jack finally. "Do you think it's the door?"

"How on earth would I know?" snapped Wuya. "I've never frozen the entire universe before!" She sighed as she calmed down and looked again at the mysterious locked door, trying to determine whether it had any mystical properties. "Whatever it is, it's not magical. It's definitely not a Shen Gong Wu. You're on your own for this one."

Jack let out a sigh of his own, and touched the door – and screamed when the door sucked him through, without opening. Wuya wasn't even surprised. She could tell he was okay, as she heard him yell triumphantly from the other side soon afterwards.

"All right! Jack's hit the jackpot! The Wu's gotta be here!"

Wuya phased through the door and found herself inside a small hall of stone that was as unremarkable as the door. That is to say, it looked normal enough – with no furnishings, it was just an empty stone hall – but appearances could be deceiving. There was no sign of the door they'd come through, for starters.

She put on a burst of speed to catch up with Jack. "For the last time, Jack – there are no Shen Gong Wu here."

"Oh yeah? Then what do you call that?"

At the far end of the hall, on top of a stone pedestal, was a strange, silver cylindrical object. Perhaps the hall was not so empty after all. But one had to wonder whether the pedestal had been there the whole time, or whether it had appeared suddenly. Or whether it was even real. Wuya certainly didn't remember it being there a moment ago.

"I don't know," she replied irritably, glaring at the faraway object with what she felt was quite justified distrust. The cylinder shined with a metallic blue gleam and, in spite of any illusions that the hall may have cast, the object itself appearedto be man-made, not magical. The dead giveaway was the word "FENTON" written in large, industrial letters across the side. It looked very much like a Jack invention, in fact, and with Jack's reliable knack for causing disasters, she didn't want him going near anything mechanical ever again. "What _do_ you call that?"

Jack grinned as he pointed the Detecto-bot at the canister, confirming that it was, at the very least, the cause of the tracking device's bleeping. "I call it the Jack Spicer Thermos Of Evil!" he declared, patting his Time-bot on the back as it finally caught up.

"What a ridiculous name!"

"It's a brand new Wu, right? That means I get to name it!"

Wuya clenched ghostly fists in annoyance. "Dashi created all the Shen Gong Wu in order to fight _me_. In case you haven't noticed, Dashi's been gone for almost fifteen hundred years. This _can't_ be a new Wu. Look, it quite obviously belongs to someone called 'Fenton'."

"Well... then... It's… the 'Fenton Thermos' Shen Gong Wu!" he said dramatically, obviously dead set on giving the object a name. Jack did rather like to claim ownership over things.

"Ugh! I give up!" Wuya spun round, floating away, back towards where they had entered the strange hall. The boy could be such an idiot sometimes. "Don't you dare touch it. Something's not right."

"C'mon, how else are we gonna find a way out of here?"

He walked closer towards it, ignoring Wuya's snarl of frustration.

"Fine, be that way!" she snapped, stubbornly staying where she was. "Don't come crying to me if it's booby-trapped and the walls start closing in!"

She folded her arms, pouting and deliberately looking the other way in order to ignore him, which was why she noticed when everything suddenly became darker. Suddenly she could feel a dark presence permeating through the walls, as if the entire room had gained a malevolent sentience. All thoughts of abandoning Jack immediately evaporated.

"Jack!"

Shadows danced across the walls and the ceiling – a blue mist formed on the ground, threatening to suffocate – it became cold, so chilly that even Wuya could feel it going straight _through _her – Jack was completely oblivious, still edging forwards, completely bent on grabbing his new discovery –

"_Jack_!"

He stopped, and turned around to face her.

"What?" he said.

Wuya gave him an utterly surprised look. Was she the only one who could see this room for what it really was?

"You idiot, don't touch -"

A tendril of green light shot out from the cylinder, hitting Jack in the back. The force propelled the Time-bot sideways, and, suddenly it crackled with static, flashes of electricity appearing around it as it flickered into life and caused a small silver vortex to appear next to it. A wind suddenly flared up, a fierce breeze emanating from the silver Time-error. The Thermos remained steadfast, locked in place, seeming to bound tightly to the room, but Jack, Wuya and the Time-bot were sucked inside.

Jack's basement was on the other side, and to Wuya's relief the silver hole on this end closed. The Time-bot was still fizzling with electricity. Wuya briefly remembered Jack saying something about the Time-bot having instructions to automatically teleport itself back to Jack's house should anything untoward happen, though until now she hadn't been sure how reliable the failsafe really was, and she had no idea how it had worked if they truly had been outside time's flow. The electricity couldn't have been from the Eye of Dashi, it was impossible. But maybe it was part of the robot's failsafe, some stored back-up energy? If so, why hadn't it kicked in sooner?

Jack stood up sharply and glared at where the Time-error had been. He growled, a feral, raw snarl that sounded completely unnatural.

"Jack?"

He turned around, and this time what she saw shocked her. It was his eyes. Jack Spicer wasn't there. It was someone else – some_thing_ else. Something else with inhumane eyes, something else with a sadistic smirk...

She backed away apprehensively. "What...? Who - what are you?"

He hissed, baring pointy fangs and revealing a forked tongue, and a flash of green flared into Wuya's eyes, drilling into her subconscious, and forcing her to forget that they'd ever been to the world of white.

* * *

The Observants.

Sometimes Clockwork thought a better name for them would have been the Complainants, because that's all they ever did: filed complaints and issues and grievances and all the rest of it, occasionally against each other but more usually against him.

They had eyes everywhere. They _were_ eyes everywhere. They were floating eyeballs, wearing cloaks, and ever watchful of their world and its delicate place in all of reality. Their creed forbade them from interfering with events directly, so that was why they had given Clockwork the task of managing their world's time streams, so that he could do all the things they were too spineless to do themselves.

And then, when he had bent the rules ever so slightly, they'd sent those two clowns in to keep an _eye _on him. What a joke. None of the Observants had names, but Clockwork felt it was easier if he assigned names to them, so in his mind he'd affectionately called them One and Two, with himself being the third voice of reason.

Just like all the others of their kind, those two had watched and watched, and watched, but they could never truly _see_. They'd completely missed the obvious, as usual. And he hadn't bothered to tell them. He knew they would overreact.

Not that he could blame them for panicking. The moments of complete and utter breakdown throughout all worlds and times were becoming more and more frequent. It all culminated on _this_ loop. This was the final loop. Reality could not take another round.

The onus was on Dashi to fix everything back before the current loop ended, otherwise it was game over. There would be nothing but Nothing. But he knew that Dashi could do it. He'd met the monk a long time ago, and he knew that Dashi had what it took.

Now was the time to act.

* * *

Every time.

Every time a portal appeared, Jake Long lost his hold on the egg. Getting sucked into a swirling portal had the effect of making _you_ whirly, if only for a moment.

This time...

This time, the egg fell ten feet, and hit the floor. Fortunately, this particular floor was made of rubber, so the egg bounced back up instead of smashing to pieces. In his heraldic dragon form, Jake tried to catch it, but it bounced up as he fell down and vice versa.

Finally, the egg seemed to reach the edge of the make-shift trampoline and rolled down an incline. Jake flew down - and now had a good view of where he'd ended up this time.

It was like a giant baby's play area. Brightly coloured toy blocks were stacked on top of each other, each easily reaching the size of a two floor building, and their faces depicting drawings of fruits and ice cream. In addition, there were trees bearing candy and sweets and toys, much like a Christmas tree with decorations.

He landed in the middle of some chocolate trees, transformed back to his human form, and picked up the egg.

"Uh, oh," said Fu Dog.

"What?" Jake said.

And then he realised, to his horror, that he was _surrounded_ by eggs.

They were all exactly like his own egg: the same size and with a curled, golden spiral pattern in the centre. He counted: seventeen of them! They weren't all griffin eggs, were they? At least the reason for the rubber floor was now clear...

"Oh, no..."

He tried lifting each one, in turn, but he couldn't tell which one was his. They all weighed the same, and had the same markings. Now what?

"Oh for crying out loud... look what you've gone and done," said another voice. It belonged to a red and blue quadruped creature, with long, vertical ears like a rabbit, but it had the face of a toad, and the tail feathers of a bird instead of a short stubby tail. He looked quite annoyed, which to Jake meant that perhaps the other eggs belonged to him.

"You're a human, from the human world, aren't you?" said the toad-rabbit, in a weary, almost condescending tone.

"Er, yeah," said Jake, deciding that a half-truth was probably better than telling the whole truth.

"I swear, they'll make anyone a Tamer these days," the rabbit said, mostly to himself. He shook his head, standing upright on two legs and putting his arms behind his back. "Well, I'm Elecmon, and I'm the guardian of these eggs. So you'd better not have done anything to them, _or else_." He walked straight past Jake into the centre of the group of eggs, counting them.

He turned his head back sharply to face Jake. "Please tell me you didn't mix up one of your eggs with my ones."

"Uh," said Jake, feeling nervous under the creature's stern glare.

Elecmon sighed. "At least tell me that your egg isn't going to be a Poyomon."

"No, it's definitely not that," said Jake with more certainty. He didn't know what a Poyomon was, but he did know that his egg wasn't one of them.

"Good answer! My eggs are all going to hatch into Poyomon. They have to be a certain precise weight to become Poyomon, you see, so all we have to do is weigh them. Your one's the only one that's different."

"It's no use," said Jake. "I tried that. I still can't tell which one is which."

"What do you think I have that for?" said Elecmon, pointing to a large, black box a little way behind them. "Decoration?"

"Great!" said Jake. "Uh... what is it?"

"It's my weighing machine, genius."

"Ah, okay..." said Jake, still not convinced.

"Don't get _too_ excited," said Elecmon sarcastically, "there's a catch. I provide the energy for it myself, but I got into a fight with a Gazimon on the way back here, so I've only got enough charge for three weighings. And you can only fit four eggs on each side at once. Which means..."

"I can only use it three times. Got it," said Jake.

Jake and Fu Dog carried the eggs, lining them up in front of the scales. Elecmon stood down on four legs and shot an electric blast at the metal box, which made a funny beeping noise and mechanically opened itself up, and now it looked like a set of scales.

"Pretty handy," said Fu Dog.

"Yup," said Elecmon.

Jake put four eggs on one side and four eggs on the other; the scales remained level, so he put these eight identical eggs to one side.

"Can't be one of those ones," he said. The box collapsed.

With eight eggs gone, this left nine eggs, and two more tries.

_Nine_ eggs...

_Two_ tries...

Weighing scales...

_Wait a minute...!_

"What's wrong?" said Fu Dog. "Why're you screwing your face like that?"

"This is just like the puzzle that stupid professor gave me!"

"Oh, c'mon, kid, he didn't seem that bad," said Fu, guessing why he was a bit upset. Jake had a bit of an aversion towards professors, since the only one he knew, Professor Rotwood, set out to make his life a living hell by constantly trying to publicly expose his secret. The magical community was not known to exist by the majority of humans in their world, and it was a constant battle against Professor Rotwood to keep it that way.

"_Didn't seem that bad?_ Did you see the way he looked at me when he gave me the question?"

"All the better to prove him wrong, then," said Fu. "Something tells me we haven't seen the last of him. You wanna be prepared if we meet him again, right?"

"Excuse me," said Elecmon snidely, "but these eggs are not going to weigh themselves, are they? And I'm certainly not going to clean up your mess, I'm perfectly fine to just wait for them to hatch."

"Aww, man... Fine... Can't be that hard..."

* * *

Meanwhile, the master of puzzles himself sat at the bedroom desk, in front of the mirror, inside a hotel. Luke had fallen asleep on the king-size bed, next to another companion of theirs, Flora, who'd been too unwell to accompany them, and had thus remained in the hotel while he and Luke went into town to investigate.

It was now a few hours after Layton and Luke had met the Chinese monk - Dashi, he reminded himself - and the sky above Folsense was still as dark as it had ever been. At this time of year, near the middle of summer, Layton was sure that he should have seen signs of the sun appearing in the sky.

This was a very strange town indeed. And it was hiding the truth behind an equally strange item: the Elysian Box.

Pandora's Box: the biggest mystery the professor had ever come across. It was one that had cost his mentor, Dr. Andrew Schrader, his life.

Absently, Layton started to fidget with the puzzle box that Dashi had given him, twisting it round like a Rubik's Cube.

"You still up, Professor?" said Luke, tiredly. He'd been so tired that he'd fallen asleep with his uniform on, and Layton hadn't wanted to wake him. He shuffled to the edge of the bed and got up, wearily walking to where the Professor sat.

Layton turned his head round. "Go back to sleep, Luke. Don't worry about me. I'll be fine."

Luke smiled knowingly. When the professor's mind was on puzzles and mysteries, less important things like eating and sleeping were often left on the wayside.

"If you say so, Professor..."

He frowned, then, remembering the distraught look on the professor's face when they'd found Schrader's dead body in his flat, in central London. Andrew Schrader had opened the Elysian Box, and fallen prey to the deadly curse.

Luke couldn't begin to imagine what it would feel like if he ever found the professor like that, lifeless and cold... Did they really _want_ to find the Elysian Box? He looked back up at the professor, and his expression turned to surprise as he started at what he saw.

"Oh, Professor! Look, you solved it!"

"Huh?" said Layton, who, lost in his own thoughts about Schrader, hadn't even realised he had opened Dashi's puzzle box. "So I have..." There wasn't anything inside, but it was still a satisfying accomplishment.

"I knew you'd do it! The great Professor Layton strikes again!"

"Shh, Luke," said Layton gently, smiling at Luke. "Flora's still sleeping. It's bad manners to wake a lady."

"Oops, sorry. But..." Luke paused, trying extremely hard not to show worry on his face, but the professor still seemed to pick up on it.

"What's wrong, Luke?"

"I don't think I can sleep. I mean..." He sighed, thinking that he might as well say what was on his mind. "Professor, do you think we _should_ be looking for the Elysian Box?" But as soon as Luke had asked the question, he realised he already knew the answer. The professor couldn't just leave things be. He _had_ to find the truth, no matter the risks involved, or how undesirable that truth may turn out to be. That was just the way he was.

He wouldn't let Schrader's death be in vain.

"We'll find the answer, Luke," he said after a pause, and he smiled reassuringly at his apprentice. "I promise."

* * *

Link started down the path, on his way to deal with Bellum, when another hole appeared on the beach where Oshus stood. And then another. And another, and another...

He immediately ran back, and pointed his Phantom Sword at every one that appeared in order to extinguish them, but there was a point where, for every one he dissipated two appeared in its place, and he had to take great care not to get sucked inside one himself. To an outside observer, it was a little like watching someone play the game "Whack-a-mole".

Finally, the holes stopped appearing, and after Link made the last one disappear, he sheathed his sword.

"That had better be the end of it," he said.


	11. Chapter 10: This Way Comes

**Chapter 10: "...This Way Comes"**

* * *

Jack was aware that he existed on some level, but he didn't exist in the physical sense. He was just... aware. His eyes opened, and his body moved to get up, but he hadn't _told_ it to get up. It hadn't been his consciousness that had issued the command, because all he wanted to do was lie down. He was in a space behind his eyes, and he couldn't see the entirety of the outside world. It was like he was taking a backseat in his own mind.

Who was driving?

_**What are you doing here?**_

_This is my mind. What are you doing here?_

Jack felt himself being pushed, far, far down, until he was buried under darkness, hardly existing at all.

* * *

On the outskirts of Folsense, Layton and Luke stood outside a slightly rusted iron gate that stood as the entrance to a wild, dark forest that lurked within. Layton picked up an old lantern from the ground; it was somewhat weathered, with a couple of small dents in its metal casing, but otherwise it was still functional.

"Professor?"

"Luke. Our next destination is clear. If we are ever to clear this mystery up once and for all..."

"You mean..." Luke stared at the gate apprehensively. "We're going to have to visit that spooky castle ourselves?"

Layton chuckled. "Don't tell me you're scared?"

"Of course not!" said Luke, pouting and folding his arms stubbornly, as only a cheeky schoolboy could. "A million vampires wouldn't scare me!"

"As a matter of fact, I'd very much like to meet this vampire," said Layton, smiling. "Duke Anton..."

Luke was puzzled for a moment. "I thought you didn't believe in vampires? Hey... wait a minute, are you pulling my leg, Professor?"

Layton didn't answer, but his smile grew wider. "Shall we go in?"

"Of course! I'm ready when you are, Professor!"

As they entered the forest, goosebumps ran all the way up Luke's arms. Shivering, he kept close to Layton, following him as they walked along the dirt path, the professor holding the small lantern in his right hand to light the shadowy way ahead. From the vantage point of the garlic man's watchtower, they had seen the layout of the land around Folsense. They both knew that somewhere in front of them, past the trees, was the Duke's castle. But they had to get through the forest first.

"Is this really the only way to get there?" Luke asked after about ten minutes of walking. All of his earlier bravado had deserted him. It was so difficult to see under the thick foliage of the trees; if Layton hadn't found that lantern outside the entrance, they would be walking in almost complete darkness.

Luke turned his head round and stopped walking for a moment, adding, "This place gives me goosebumps..."

_Crack...!_

What was that? The noise had been to his left - he snapped his head in that direction - a large shape loomed into view...

"Ayiiiii!"

Instantly, Layton was by his side, bending down. "Luke! What's wrong?"

Both arms shaking and with heavy breaths, Luke pointed to the shadows. "A g-g-g-ghost! There's a g-g-ghost in the f-forest!"

"Don't be silly. You're imagining it."

"But-but I'm sure I saw it, Professor!"

Layton put a gentle hand on Luke's shoulder, and gave him a warm, fatherly look. "Deep breaths, Luke."

"I... phew..."

Slowly, Luke calmed down. Layton stood up, and hovered the lantern above the "ghost"... which turned out to be a gnarled tree root.

"Your nerves are on edge, my boy. It's only natural that something as harmless as a tree would look like a ghost in this light."

Phew... His eyes had been playing tricks on him. The relief was immense. But, it wasn't so much that the ghost was fake, it was more Layton's reaction that had reassured Luke. Layton had not said it out loud, but Luke could see it in his eyes. He was saying: _I will not let any harm come to you._

"Feeling better?"

"Yeah. Thanks, Professor."

"You're welcome," said Layton. "Let's go."

They continued on without incident, and soon left the forest. The path opened out into a rocky, open area. The full moon was shining, and the silhouette of the castle in the distance loomed into view. Luckily they didn't have far to go, though they did have to slide across a frozen lake and cross a rickety old bridge before they reached the entrance to the castle.

"This place looks even scarier up close," said Luke, peering up at the castle's Gothic spires.

"Feeling nervous again?" said Layton.

"Not on your life!" said Luke, who, with clenched fists and a wide smirk, was the very picture of bull-headed determination. "Let's go!"

Layton knocked twice on the large wooden door, and, after a short pause, a primly dressed butler with spectacles answered.

"Yessss?"

"Greetings," said Layton. "Sorry to disturb you, sir. I'm an archaeologist, and I have a few questions regarding an artefact known as the Elysian Box. Would you be able to help at all?"

"Hmm… This is a matter best addressed by the master," said the butler, who didn't seem at all bothered that two people had come all this way just to ask about a box. He had a sharp pointed nose, a nasal voice, and pointy ears. If that wasn't suspicious, Luke didn't know what was.

The butler ushered them inside, and as Dashi had discovered earlier, the interior of the castle was far more welcoming. It was simply enormous - Luke had never been inside such a building that could be called someone's home. It was also surprisingly well kept. There were red carpets across the floor, and paintings adorned all around the walls; and several polished suits of armour and ornamental swords were up against one of the walls.

"Wow, this castle is really something else!"

"Indeed," Layton agreed. "It's most impressive."

The butler took them up some stairs and knocked on a door, before opening it: and there stood Duke Anton against the large windows in the light of the full moon, purple cape curled around him. He looked to be in his early twenties and had blond hair, and his striking, bright blue eyes contrasted with his soft, pale face.

"Greetings," he said, smiling a small smile. "Welcome to my home."

Luke made a small sighing noise, trying hard not to imagine any fangs.

After a couple of introductions, Anton invited them for some supper, with a cup of tea. Of course, it was impolite to refuse; and they wanted to find out more about the Elysian Box anyway. That was why they had travelled all this way, after all. And forget vampires - Luke was absolutely starving. Nothing could draw Luke faster to a place than the promise of food. He had a very big appetite, which often showed when he and Layton were in a restaurant and the bill for Luke's items far surpassed Layton's.

The dining room was equally as extravagant. A large golden chandelier hung from the middle of the room, and there were more paintings hanging on the beautiful walls. The chairs around the table were red and gold, fit for a king, as the expression went. Luke tried his best to be careful; everything looked so expensive that it felt wrong to even breathe the air, let alone sit down on one of the chairs.

As dinner was served, Luke and Layton sat at one end of the long table, and Anton sat at the other. Luke immediately tucked into his meal - braised steak and roast potatoes in a delicious mushroom sauce had never tasted so good in his opinion - but Layton was more reserved, subtly trying to draw bits of information from Anton. Then, for Luke and Layton, came the all-important cup of tea.

Anton swirled a glass of red wine around before taking a sip. "So... people fear the box because they believe it kills anyone who opens it?" He chuckled, seeming to find this a bit ludicrous. "That's quite the story."

"The box seems to be connected to your family in some way," said Layton, cutting to the point. "Can you tell me anything about this?"

"Yes, it's true. It was a family heirloom... although I parted with it several years ago. The garish emblem on it was simply not to my taste." He looked dispassionately at his wine glass, apparently wondering why Luke and Layton were asking him about such an offensive-looking Box.

But Luke wasn't buying it. He whispered to Layton: "He's not telling us the whole story."

"Yes, perhaps…" Layton whispered back. "It's difficult to tell just how much he knows..."

"You must be tired after your journey," said Anton, suddenly brightening up. "I insist you stay the night."

_Please say no please say no please say no -_

"That's very kind," said Layton, setting down his tea cup on the table. "We'll take you up on your offer."

_Arrgh_, thought Luke. He knew that, for archaeologist Layton, being inside this castle must have been like finding a gold mine, and no doubt there'd be some investigating of the castle going on later, but staying the night in a spooky castle with a vampire? That was practically begging for trouble. It didn't matter how tired Luke was, he was _not_going to be able to sleep in a place like this.

Especially since here in Folsense it seemed to be night all the time.

* * *

_Pieces of glass everywhere_, thought Dashi. _What does it mean?_

It was like being in outer space, being surrounded by sparkling purple stars. For a long moment, Chase and Dashi stared at the pieces of glass in the darkness, and all that could be heard was both the _bu-dum, bu-dum_ heartbeat of the blue sauropod, and the deep breathing of the pink theropod.

"It might seem like a very long time ago to you, but do you remember when I said that time was like a window?" Dashi asked.

"Yes, it was the first thing I remembered when things started to go wrong. This is shattered time?"

"Nope," said Dashi. "When I said time was like a window, I didn't mean it was _really_ like a window."

Chase turned to face him, mildly surprised. After turning to the Heylin side, he hadn't really spent much - well - time studying the aspects of Time. Becoming immortal changed your priorities a bit. You didn't worry too much about the passage of time when you lived forever. He had been more interested in gaining power on Earth, and besides, he knew the consequences of meddling with the time streams. He didn't need to change the timeline to become powerful. He already _was_ powerful.

"What did you mean, then?"

"I just used it to help form a picture in your minds, to help you understand. It isn't really like that at all. Time is just... time."

"So what is all this?"

"I don't know. And I'm not just saying that and deep down having an idea of what it might be. I really don't know."

"What's the problem? Aren't they just the same as the pieces you found? Can't you just turn them into makeshift Shen Gong Wu as well?"

"You suggest I do that without knowing - wait a minute," said Dashi suddenly, twisted his head around. The portal they had used to come here was still there, but the two creatures were not. "Where are the dinosaurs?"

"Well they're -" Chase started, and then he too realised that they were by themselves. And yet, they could still hear the great beasts. The sound was being dampened, as if they were in another room, but it also sounded like the sound was _everywhere_ in the surroundings, rumbling and much louder, as though Chase and Dashi had been shrunk...

"It sounds like... they're outside this dimension?" said Chase.

"Oh, right," said Dashi. "I _see_. Very clever. We're _inside_ one of the glass pieces I found."

"Glass pieces within glass pieces," said Chase. "Why on earth did they bring us _here_?"

One of the floating glass pieces beside them shimmered, and then said: _"No time paradoxes allowed."_

"No time paradoxes allowed, indeed," agreed Dashi without missing a beat. "The last thing we need is another time paradox."

"I know that voice," said Chase. _Raimundo._

Dashi waited for a bit, hoping the piece would elaborate, but it never did. A different purple piece shimmered into life instead: _"Well, well. Look what the __cat-nappé_ _dragged in."_

"Nope," said Dashi. "Don't get that one at all."

"They're snippets of conversations," said Chase, who knew who Katnappé was, and had recognised this voice too. _Kimiko._ "Both those people are from my time."

Again, they waited. The next one was instantly recognisable to everyone present.

"_The Sands of Time gives you the ability to travel through time. It also makes a great paperweight!"_

"Hey..." said Dojo from Dashi's robes. He slithered upwards, coiling himself around Dashi's shoulders. "That was me!"

"Yes," said Chase thoughtfully. "It's very likely you from the same time period, my present. If the Sands of Time reactivated again after centuries of disuse, that is."

"I _said_ the Sands of Time from the future might be doing something," said Dojo proudly.

"Yes, I know," said Dashi. "And _I_ said I wanted to know why it was affecting me - and only me - in the past."

"But it wasn't supposed to be doing anything at all," said Chase. "That wasn't what happened in my timeline. In my timeline it did not activate until at least two weeks later."

"I see, it became active early, then. This is the change in the timeline you were referring to before, the one caused by the Time-error?"

"Yes."

Yet another piece glowed. _"The universe is coming to an end."_

"That's encouraging," said Dashi. "Someone in your time, besides you, knew about the end of the universe."

"Jack Spicer," Chase said, mildly irritated. Jack was, in his view, the most useless person on the planet, but unlike most people Chase thought were useless, he could actually affect events on a grand scale because of his involvement with the Shen Gong Wu. What did he have to do with anything? Perhaps the question was, what _didn't_ he have to do it? _He_ must have done something with the Shen Gong Wu, most likely the Sands of Time.

"You know him?"

"Yes." The word was all but a sigh.

A glass piece said: _"We're stuck in a time loop!"_ It was Jack again.

"A time loop!" said Dashi excitedly, about to say something more when Jack spoke once more.

_"But how is that possible? There's nowhere for the time streams to go, because time doesn't exist after that point..."_

"He sounds like he's on the ball," said Dashi.

"You have no idea how far from the truth that is," said Chase. "Please don't go making assumptions that the boy is brilliant. If anything, he's probably the cause of all this."

"He's right about the time streams, Chase. They can't go in a circle if time ends, the end of time itself breaks the circle. There can be no loop, if the end of the universe is the cause of it. It's impossible."

"If I have learned anything about you, it's that you are a genius whiz at making the impossible possible."

Chase stopped himself suddenly. "Wait. The blue dinosaur showed me the end of the universe. I saw everything whirl into nothingness, but I also saw the glass pieces thrown out of the whirling nothingness, like an explosion. Might the end of the universe be throwing them across time and space?"

Dashi thought hard, remembering something he'd thought earlier when he'd been looking in the mirror on the stall, just before he'd met Professor Layton.

_The timeline was tampering with the timeline..._

It was doing it to itself... Over and over again... That was it, wasn't it?

"I've got an idea now," he said.

"Yes?"

"The glass pieces keep on getting bigger and bigger by themselves. It's because the time loop is causing the pieces to grow larger. The pieces hold segments of the loop within them, segments of space-time. Every time the loop goes round, the pieces get larger."

"Pieces of looped time, within pieces of looped time, within pieces of looped time," said Chase, turning his head to look at one of them. "So... this really _is_ shattered time."

"Yes, I suppose it is," said Dashi, smiling grimly.

"Our universe, broken down into pieces, over and over again." Chase made a scowling face, and Dashi was again surprised by his own reaction: pleased that, with all his powers and age-old wisdom Chase still didn't seem to know what to do about this. Some things were just beyond the scope of Heylin magic. But on the other hand, not many people knew about how to handle time streams. No wonder Chase had come to him for help.

"So," said Dojo, trying to recap, "the Time-error in Infinity reopens, which changes the timeline so that the Sands of Time activates early, which leads events to cause the destruction of the universe, which causes the pieces to go flying every which way, which somehow causes the loop and makes it all happen all over again?"

"That's pretty much the gist of it," said Dashi, "though there's still one vital thing missing."

"What's that?" said Dojo.

"It doesn't explain how the loop is able to sustain itself. The universe should have just collapsed the first time, not form a time loop... Unless..."

"Unless what?" said Chase.

Dashi didn't reply. He stared at the nearest piece, and breathed out deeply, projecting his chi energy. Inside here it was a lot easier to feel what the fragment was, which was probably why the dinosaurs had brought them here. As both Chase and Dojo had described, it was like a Shen Gong Wu, but not a Shen Gong Wu at all. There was that odd electrical force at its centre. He closed his eyes, and felt the energy, not as a full purple, but as a separate red and blue. It was accumulating time, and directing it towards his home world, and if they were _all_ doing that...

The invisible ground shook. For a moment, everything swirled into one undulating mass of nothingness, and then un-swirled into existence again.

"Let's go back," said Dashi. "I think I've cracked it."

"Hmm," said Chase, who had his own suspicions.

Back outside in the purple dimension, the two beasts were grimacing, arcing their necks round, and stomping great feet, taking part in some kind of invisible struggle.

"Trying to... stop the spread of the distortion?" Chase wondered out loud.

A new portal opened, but with a vast amount of effort on both dinosaurs' part. The ground was still shaking, but Dashi and Chase hurried through, where the next world's ground was stable. This time they were on sand, and they could feel the sun's warmth and a gentle breeze, inside an actual world that lived and breathed, instead of within the empty void of an exterior dimension.

The portal closed behind them. Dashi stared at it, wondering if the two dinosaurs would be all right. "I think we're on our own now," he said.

"Think again," said Chase, pointing to two other figures on the beach: an old man with a conch-shaped stick, and a young boy in green, holding a sword.

The boy in green looked positively furious. "Now where the bloody hell did _you_ come from?"

* * *

Jack rose back up, this time fully aware of the other presence inhabiting his mind. It was like an uncomfortable heater in a tiny room, giving off emotions instead of heat. It was radiating a powerful, terrible feeling, a strong, burning desire to kill something. And the murderous feeling was being directed towards his mother.

He, or rather his body, was in the study, leaning by the wooden doors that led out to the balcony, on the top floor of his house. His mother - a tall thin figure - was outside on the balcony, painting a still life, a bowl of fruit on a small table next to her. She turned around, taking her attention away from the easel. Usually she was a calm, if severe person, who never really bothered herself with her son's activities, but now her expression was cold; she was annoyed because of the interruption. She still held the paintbrush in her hands.

"Jack? What do you want? If it's money you're after, go ask your father. You know I won't have anything to do with your ridiculous hobby."

Jack tried to stop his hand from rising up - but the energy was coming from the presence, not him, and it flowed through to his hand, making it glow a spectral green. As his hand glowed, an unnatural, manic laughter escaped his lips. It was his voice, but, like the energy, the source of the laughter was from the ghostly presence.

His mother dropped the paintbrush in panic and took a step back, now frightened. "Jack? What are you doing?"

He was powerless to stop himself from aiming. She just stood there, baffled and afraid, and Jack fired. She grunted, buckling a little before righting herself. Turning back up to face Jack, she looked bewildered for a moment.

And then she said: "Jack, what do you want? If it's money you're after, go ask your father. You know I won't have anything to do with your ridiculous hobby."

It was as if the last ten seconds hadn't happened. Both Jack and the ghost presence possessing his body were nonplussed.

_Don't you remember what happened?_ Jack asked, from within his own mind. _I just tried to kill you...!_

"Don't you remember what happened?" said the ghost, who also wanted to know.

"What are you talking about?" she said shortly, bending down to pick up the paint brush, and looking at the mess of paint on the floor of the balcony with all the disdain that a mother could muster. But when she stood up, her gaze had softened. "Are you feeling okay, Jack? You look... paler than usual."

"I'm fine," said the ghost. "Never mind."

The ghost walked Jack's body out of her study, and then furiously flew through the wall, through the floors, down to Jack's basement. Jack barely had time to register that his body had gone through solid matter without Shen Gong Wu, when a wave of fury came from the other mind. It was so overwhelming, so powerful that for a minute the consciousnesses almost appeared to merge; for a few seconds, Jack was the anger _and_ himself at the same time.

Anger. Fear. Anger. Fear.

- He was angry. He wanted to kill her!

- He was scared! No matter how evil he'd wanted to be, he could never kill his own mother!

- This world was so different. It had different rules. Different limitations. Overshadowing was different here.

- Overshadowing? What the hell was that?

- And it made him angry. Extremely angry. He'd tried to kill all the _things_ in this house, but he couldn't summon enough power to do it! It was so - _frustrating_. He was _itching_ to make the entire house blow sky high, like an over-pressurized boiler about to burst. Something had to give.

- Something had to give, all right! He wanted this intruder out of his head! He wanted to go back to building robots!

- The anger calmed. There were still things he could do, even with the limited powers he had.

- Her memory had been erased. Wasn't that enough? What more could this bodysnatcher do?

- He'd get the Sands of Time and have his revenge. And then he could do whatever the hell he felt like doing.

- But _he_ needed the Sands of Time...! The universe was going to collapse!

Like oil and water, the thoughts coalesced and both consciousnesses separated.

_**What... was that? What happened? You're reading my mind?**_

Jack refrained from saying, "Yep, and there isn't much there," because that would have been a sure fire way of ensuring an early grave. Besides, it would have been a lie. There was plenty to see there, it was just that what you were seeing was the mind of the truly disturbed. Jack really could have done without that brief moment of shared madness.

He had already found out a few things about his captor while being in the sea of memories. The ghost's name was Danny, and contrary to all previous evidence, he'd once been a hero while still alive. At one time a ghost-human hybrid, he had used ghostly powers and risked his life to save his hometown on many occasions.

One day, a terrible accident had killed his family and friends, and, consumed by grief and depression, he'd tragically taken his own life. Unfortunately, the ghosts of Danny's world were a very real and tangible threat, and, whenever they materialised, they tended to fixate on one specific obsession. In death, Danny had become a full-blown ghost that was immensely powerful, capable of destroying entire city blocks without breaking much of a sweat. Stripped of everything that made him human, and with no reason to care any more, he'd immediately set out to wipe out anything in the world that irritated him - which was pretty much everything - and that became his obsession.

In short, Danny's ghost had completely lost it.

He'd gone on to kill countless people, and countless wasn't hyperbole, because Jack had lost count of the number of lives that had been lost in the mass murder. Suffice to say, the Earth of that world lived in fear; Danny had rampaged throughout cities all over for ten long years, armies and conventional weaponry having no effect on something that was already dead.

He destroyed things simply because they were _there_, but that wasn't even the worst part. The worst part was that when Danny's timeline was in danger of changing, so that his family and friends were instead saved from that fateful accident - precluding his transformation into a psychotic monster from the depths of hell - he'd gone back in time in order to kill them all himself, _just to make sure he still existed._

You couldn't reason with someone like this. Reason had, in fact, been stabbed in the chest several times and shoved off a cliff by Insanity and best chum Sadism. Reason wasn't coming back. Things that were once important, like family and friends and love, meant nothing to Danny now. The best you could do was hope that the person he'd decided to kill wasn't _you_.

Jack replied: _This mind thing works both ways, apparently. You can see my memories - and I can see yours._

Danny didn't seem to care. _**It doesn't matter. It won't change anything.**_

_The Xiaolin warriors will find a way to stop you,_ said Jack_, _feeling a strange sense of loyalty towards them. They were the good guys, they were supposed to win. They had to win. He had to have faith in them, because at the moment there was nothing _he_ could do.

_**I'm going to kill the Xiaolin warriors and take the Sands of Time from them.**_

_I'd like to see you try,_ said Jack, and then Wuya said: "What?"

Both Jack and Danny jumped mentally. Neither of them had even realised she'd been there. She'd floated surreptitiously into the basement, as she often did. Jack felt himself being pushed down as Danny attempted to focus on the outside world and rid himself of the inner distraction again. Jack tried hard to push back, but Danny's control was such that he won over Jack; nonetheless, Jack still remained in the background, refusing to drown in memories this time.

"That sounded unusually evil for you, Jack," said Wuya. "Are you sure you're all right?"

"I'm fine," said Jack's voice. Jack noted that Danny couldn't quite keep _all_ of his pent-up anger out of it; the tone of voice sounded strained. But to Danny's credit, he managed to make Jack's expression turn into something resembling normal. "I just had a small epiphany. After our little discussion. It came to me in my sleep."

"Really?" Wuya looked both surprised and cautious.

"Yeah. I'm supposed to be evil. Evil boy genius, remember?"

She was still watching him closely. Jack was counting on her natural tendency to be wary to catch Danny out, but Danny was playing the part of Jack Spicer extraordinarily well. No surprise, since he'd seen Jack's memories too.

"Yes," she replied, "but you're a pathetic, _whiny _evil. No one takes you seriously."

Danny smiled pleasantly in amusement. It was amazing how well he could fake the emotion, because he was anything but pleasant.

"I should do something to change that, then, shouldn't I?"

Wuya paused thoughtfully. "What about the universe?"

"You don't need to worry about the universe. In fact, you don't need to worry about anything at all. I've come up with a brilliant plan."

Again, Jack felt a malicious wave from the ghost inside his head, but this wave didn't carry the intent to kill. The ghost outside his head floated around in a panicked daze, apparently seeing her nemesis Dashi in everything she came across, from one of Jack's Jack-bots, to a spanner on one of the tables, to the stair railings, to Jack himself.

Danny was just _playing_, Jack realised in horror. This was both ridiculous and scary at the same time. The end of the universe was coming and here was this ghost, actually enjoying seeing another person's discomfort - and yet this was nothing compared to what Danny _really_ wanted to do.

Luckily for Wuya, a Shen Gong Wu became active, and the glow of energy that she usually experienced to signify the activation broke through the illusion. Unluckily for Wuya, this caused her to become extraordinarily confused. If Jack hadn't been afraid before, he was certainly a nervous wreck now. He'd never seen her look so disorientated. She muttered, "The Komori Sword," a few times, before seemingly coming back to reality.

"What... what was I doing?" she said.

"You were saying something about the Komori Sword being in a castle," said Danny, faking mild concern. "And I was just about to tell you about my plan..."

"Ah..." Wuya stared at him, seeming to know _something_ had happened but not able to figure out exactly what.

"What's wrong? Are _you_ all right? What happened?"

"I'm... fine. Yes, yes, I'm fine. What's your plan?"

Ever since Danny had tightened his control and pushed Jack's consciousness further down, Jack had been alone with his thoughts. And, while Danny explained how he wanted to use the Chameleon-bot to collect the Komori Sword, and steal the Shen Gong Wu to Wuya, Jack thought: _She doesn't realise anything's wrong._ _He's fiddled with her memory. We're going to go the temple and try to steal the Sands of Time. He's going to escape. And this universe is going to collapse._

Jack's only hope now was Omi. Would Omi be able to keep a tight enough hold on the Sands of Time? Would Omi realise that Jack was being possessed? It was the kind of thing Omi was good at. But would his tiger instincts and Xiaolin skills be enough?

They would have to be.


	12. Chapter 11: Jack and Omi's Bogus Journey

**Chapter 11: Jack and Omi's Bogus Journey**

* * *

The time loop continued on.

At the site of the Komori Sword showdown, inside the castle, the Chameleon-bot was having a hard time. The magic of the Shen Gong Wu had somehow affected it. It couldn't understand the primal, simian rage that the Monkey Staff had induced in it for losing the showdown. As a robot it didn't require food, but all it could think about was bananas. It didn't have the Staff, but it couldn't change back. It was malfunctioning. It banged its head against the wall. It self-destructed.

Its head exploded clean off its body.

"Weird," said Kimiko. "Maybe the Monkey Staff messed up its circuitry."

"If this is a robot," said Omi, "where is the real Jack?"

"Uh oh," said Raimundo, "the Xiaolin temple! They must be after our Shen Gong Wu!"

Dojo quickly grew to his larger size, and the monks prepared to rush back to the temple. But before Omi could climb on Dojo's back, the Sands of Time flashed from within his robes, and he pulled the hourglass out.

"What is happen–"

The light was blinding. When Omi opened his eyes again, he was in complete darkness. He couldn't see anything. He could just feel the Sands of Time in his hand, the floor underneath him, and that was about it. It was a little cold, and there was a damp, musty smell.

_Uh oh..._

He held up the Sands of Time, yelling out its name and willing it to work, but nothing happened. He tried again, and again, even shaking it vigorously, and still nothing happened. What was going on? Was there some hidden knack to using it, like the Tangled Web Comb? Had it run of power?

Some time passed. The Sands of Time did not stir.

_What am I going to do?_ he thought miserably in desperation, feeling a sense of loneliness come over him in the darkness. He had been hoping that Shen Gong Wu collecting would be still exciting enough to present a challenge to his expert skills, but not _this_ exciting. This was too much. He hadn't counted on being stranded in some kind of dark dimension because of a renegade Shen Gong Wu.

_Am I going to be stuck here forever?_

He missed his friends terribly. At least they would have tried to cheer him up.

_This is most unfair_. _Stupid Jack._

He didn't know why, but he somehow had the feeling that this was all Jack's fault, even though Jack really had no way to tamper with any of the Shen Gong Wu.

Suddenly, light appeared, causing Omi to wince, and he shut his eyes tight. Slowly, he opened them, using his free hand to cover his face. Once his eyes had adjusted to the light, he could see that where he was wasn't really Nothingness. Nothingness was actually a stone hall, with columns around the edge of the walls, dimly lit by tiny lanterns hanging at the top. A raised platform was at the back of the hall. There were no doors, only four blank grey walls, but somehow this didn't seem like the kind of place that needed a door to gain entry.

"Hello."

Omi whirled round. "Who is there?"

"Just me."

Omi kept turning around, but it seemed the voice was everywhere; it was smooth, deep and permeated the entire hall, almost like it _was_ the hall.

"Who is 'me'?"

"No-one special. I just... live here."

_Inside the walls?_ thought Omi.

"How did you get here? It's not exactly the easiest of places to get to, ha."

"Um..." Omi faltered, keenly aware that he still held the Sands of Time. He wasn't quite sure if he could trust a talking room when the room had him inside it, so he didn't respond. There was something about its voice that made him... uncomfortable. He had the strong feeling that he shouldn't be here.

"You look like the guy who got lost here a long time ago. Tall bald guy. Some master of kung fu, created a time-travelling hourglass just like the one in your hand."

"Dashi?"

"Yeah, think that was his name."

"Grandmaster Dashi was here?" Omi asked, slightly curious.

"Yeah... He'd made a mistake, and made the universe freeze up, and somehow ended up here. I remember him specifically because he was the only person I'd seen in years. It gets pretty lonely here."

"Um, yes, I am sure it does." Omi decided to ask the question which had been on his mind since the voice had first spoken to him. "Um... How does one leave here?"

Omi knew it was weird, but the hall was angry. He could _feel_ the anger.

"_No one _leaves here."

"But Grandmaster Dashi -"

"Dashi was lucky."

A cold draft rose up, chilling Omi to the bone. He tensed, bracing for a fight with a _room_. And then suddenly a gash appeared in the air. He recognised it as the purple tear made by the Golden Tiger Claws. Jack Spicer came out of the portal, after which the hole vanished.

How odd...

"Hello, Omi," said Jack. He folded his arms, giving him a bored look. "Fancy seeing you here."

Omi's tiger instincts instantly switched into high alert mode. It was Jack's voice, Jack doing the talking, but, like this weird hall, there was something about him that screamed wrongness. Something about his eyes... Shouldn't Jack have been more surprised to see him here?

But he wasn't entirely sure. He hazarded a guess.

"You're not Jack," he said, his brow folding into a cautious expression. He was expecting Jack to deny everything and ask him what on earth he was talking about. He was expecting the hall to close in on them.

What he wasn't expecting was the hall to admit it was posing as Jack, right off the bat.

"Ha!" said the hall, throwing away all sense of pretence. "Well done!"

Omi found himself frozen to the spot, unable to move as Jack walked slowly and deliberately towards him, almost like a zombie, with a dreamy smile on his face.

_He's being possessed,_ thought Omi.

Jack's gaze became unfocused, and both Jack's voice and the voice of the hall spoke in unison.

"You know, you're as good as Dashi. He saw right through me as well. Not that it matters now." And then Jack's possessed body grinned and patted Omi on the head, and, in only Jack's voice, said: "You just sit tight. It's all about to get _very_ interesting."

Not-Jack turned around, walking up to a pedestal on top of the raised platform. He picked up some kind of metallic canister - which Omi was sure hadn't been there a moment ago - and opened it.

A light blasted out and up, like a torch shining upwards, accompanied by resounding, wicked laughter. Jack reeled backwards from the force, and the canister clanked to the floor. Smoke hissed out, solidifying into a tall, pale green - _demon_, Omi thought, it wasn't until later that he learned his name - with white flames for hair and pointed ears, and a forked tongue.

Jack blinked several times as he regained his senses, shaking his head and holding it in his non-Tiger Clawed hand as he apparently fought down a wave of dizziness. He gasped as he looked up at the ghost in pure terror - of course, having been inside Danny's mind, he knew all too well what Danny was capable of - and he turned to face Omi.

"Omi! Quick, run! Get out of-"

Jack's cries were cut short by a blast. He was vaporised. Just like that. He hadn't even had time to scream.

"Hmm," said Danny as he picked up the Golden Tiger Claws, completely ignoring the pile of smoking ash on the floor. "These Shen Gong Wu are quite resilient, aren't they? I wonder how much power it would take to completely destroy them?"

Still immobilised, Omi was completely defenceless against Danny's next shot. Instead of delivering a killing blow, Danny wrenched the Sands of Time away, levitating the hourglass through the air, and into his hands. He idly chucked the Sands of Time up and down a couple of times, and smiled a little. Clearly the fact that he'd just casually murdered someone didn't bother him in the slightest.

A knot of fear twisted in Omi's gut when Danny turned his head to stare directly at him, then, his smile becoming predatory. "Now, what _am_ I going to do with _you_?"

His _eyes_. It was the demon's eyes that were the worst. Their unmistakable, gleeful intent for murder showed that he wasn't all _there_. Omi had never faced a foe like this before. Wuya was driven by greed and power, and Jack was only in the game because he wanted attention, and he wanted people to sit up and take notice, but all this demon wanted to do was destroy, and he clearly enjoyed doing it. There was something almost animalistic about this, as if killing was just in his nature. Getting him to do otherwise would be akin to asking a hungry crocodile to let go of your leg - a crocodile with a sick, sadistic streak, at that.

It was absolutely terrifying, staring back at those red eyes, and it took all of Omi's inner resolve not to show any fear.

"Let me go, evil demon!"

"Demon? Heh. I suppose that's one way of describing me." Omi tried not to shudder when Danny bent down and flicked his snake-like tongue in his ear, instead pointedly staring straight ahead. "But for future reference, I'm a _ghost_." The unspoken message was clear: _it really doesn't matter, because now you're going to die._

"I am not afraid of ghosts," said Omi stubbornly.

Danny stood up, grinning the terrible crocodile grin again. "Of course not, of course not. So what _is _the thing you fear most? Let's take a look-see, shall we?"

Omi felt an alien presence forcibly enter his mind, and a heavy weight fell over his eyes, like a migraine but without the pain, images and memories blinking by uncontrollably. Danny chortled as he changed shape to resemble a perverse, green version of a squirrel.

"Squirrels?" he managed to say in between laughs. "You're afraid of _squirrels_?"

Omi again tried not to shudder, though this time it was lot harder. Even in the form of a squirrel, Danny towered over him, and, with matted fur, rabid eyes and crooked teeth, he looked just like the monster squirrel from his nightmare.

"But this isn't the only thing you're afraid of, is it?"

Suddenly, they were in the training grounds of the Xiaolin temple. Raimundo was standing with his hands tied behind his back by some kind of glowing green rope, and gagged with the same green substance.

Danny stood on two legs and held a front paw up to reveal sharp talons, like a cat unsheathing its claws. In one swift motion he reached wordlessly across, plunging his arm deep into Raimundo's chest, forcefully ripping his heart out. Omi screamed as Raimundo's body collapsed forwards, face down into the ground.

"So frail," Danny whispered to the heart. _"_Always so_ frail._" The crazed squirrel turned dreamy red eyes to Omi. "But that's the beauty of death. So pointless. So... inescapable."

"You... you... you..."

"Monster?" Danny prompted smoothly, taking a step closer and closer towards Omi as he spoke. "Sadistic, manipulative psychopath? Sick, twisted bastard, perhaps? C'mon, let's hear it. _Give me your worst._ I've heard it all before." He stopped directly in front of Omi and deliberately released him from his freeze-hold, waiting to see how he would react.

"I wonder," he said, relentless in his torture, "if secretly, this is something you _desire_. After all, he betrayed you, didn't he? You never _truly_ trusted him after that."

No! He'd never wanted him dead! Omi had been saddened, and distressed by Raimundo's betrayal. Even when Raimundo had come to the temple to steal the Serpent's Tail for Wuya, Omi had still believed in him... and even now, he'd still had faith in him. All Omi wanted was for the others to be the best they could be. That was why, sometimes, he was hard on them. But now, Raimundo would never reach his full potential.

And rather than go berserk with rage, and furiously deny any of the monster's words, Omi's reaction was to crouch down on all fours and weep bitterly to the ground.

Raimundo was his friend... His friend... His friend was...

"You know," said Danny, folding his squirrel arms, still holding the bloodied heart in one paw, "I'm disappointed. _Dragon of Water._ I thought you'd put up more of a fight."

The heart hovered out of his paw, flipping upside down, and its arteries and veins stretched, growing to a monstrous size, making it look like a meaty, red squid. It twisted its hose-sized vessels around Omi, attaching itself to his back like an alien parasite, completely enveloping him in a kind of cocoon. Omi gasped sharply as it squeezed harder and harder.

"And this whole time, Jack was counting on you to save him, too. What a shame!" Danny's dark chuckle soon gave way to full blown crazed laughter. Apparently he didn't see anything _wrong_ with this disturbing picture.

Against the cruel sounds of Danny's laughter, Omi struggled, and strained inside his bonds. Wheezing for air, he blacked out...

...And like breaking through the surface of water, he woke up.

He was... in the space behind his eyes, just a consciousness. He could see what was going on, but felt somewhat removed from the outside world, like he was no longer physical any more. Had he... died?

A voice said: _Fight him!_

_What?_ thought Omi tiredly. Danny was still laughing, oblivious to the words of the strange voice, and Omi wondered if he was imagining things. This depraved madness was obviously catching.

_Face your fear, and fight it, Omi! I know you can do it!_

_But... he's too powerful..._

_It's all an illusion_, said the voice. _He's just messing with your head, toying with you before he deals the final blow._

Now Omi was alert. _What?_

_None of this is real_, said the voice firmly.

_None of this is real_, repeated Omi, suddenly finding a small piece of hope from out of nowhere. The voice was familiar, his only link to the real world, to sanity. _None of this is real._ With a tremendous amount of strength and resolve, he returned to the outside world and, still struggling, _willed_ the heart to disappear. _None of this is real, none of this is real, none of this is real..._

All of a sudden, Omi was back in the dark hall. No Xiaolin temple, no blood, no dead Raimundo with a hole in the middle of his body or any organs from the hole in said body. Omi heaved a huge sigh of relief. There was no deranged squirrel either, but in its place was the deranged ghost.

Said ghost blinked in surprise, but he recovered extraordinarily fast, and he froze Omi in place once more.

"Huh. You broke through," he said, not looking in the least bit perturbed. "Oh, well, I've had my fun. Say g'bye, Omi."

He raised his hand - and then his expression changed as an odd red mist came out of his nose. He growled, now looking around at the air cautiously, seeming to sense something. "What...? There shouldn't be anyone here without _me_ knowing..."

Something blue whizzed past, and the Sands of Time was forced out of his hand. The blur, some kind of gaseous entity, held the hourglass within its mass, and turned it intangible, keeping it safe within itself, and then charged back for round two. Danny angrily backed away, firing back with green energy blasts from his hands but not actually hitting the blue mass.

And now, as the entity's outline became more clear, more defined, Omi knew who the voice had belonged to, and who was fighting off this evil creature. It was Jack Spicer - of all people - who had given him hope. He was a ghost, like Wuya. He was in a frenzied rage, as he tried to attack Danny by rushing at him headfirst again and again. Danny held one arm up to his face and tried to wave him off with the other arm, as if trying to swipe a fly. Neither opponent could physically hit the other, a kind of ghosts' stalemate.

They both looked... What was it that Clay would say? As mad as a bag of felines? Maybe becoming a ghost did that. Maybe it made you overly obsessed?

Whatever the reason, the distraction had broken Danny's hold on Omi. Omi was definitely keen to take advantage of that fact. He ran from behind Danny, leaping right up. He swiped the Golden Tiger Claws from the tall ghost's wrist before he could stop him, but Danny reacted quickly and fired at where he knew Omi would have to land, striking true. Omi blinked as he landed, certain he had been hit, but the attack had gone right through him.

Jack's head emerged from Omi's body. Danny fired again, and again the blast hit Omi and yet still missed, going through its intended target instead. Omi was glowing blue.

"_You _are doing that," Omi said to Jack, now beaming as he leapt to dodge the next one. Hope and some of the usual confidence he had in himself had returned: suddenly things didn't seem so one-sided any more.

"Keep moving," Jack told him, his voice very echoey. "He can't freeze you in place if you keep moving!"

Now Danny was furious, and suddenly, as if he'd used the Ring of the Nine Dragons, there were _four_ Dannys.

"Oh, crap," said Jack, ducking his head back into Omi, as the Dannys surrounded them both.

All four shot a kind of fizzled lightning at Omi, and this _did_ work, a disruptive energy rather than a destructive one. To Omi it felt like pins and needles inside his whole body, but Jack was slowly being forced out of him.

_Mustn't let him get the Sands of Time_, thought Jack, straining from the effort of staying intangible.

_I know_, thought Omi, also feeling the strain as the odd, prickly power coursed through him. His chi energy was being disrupted - he couldn't feel his water chi any more.

The Dannys sneered, holding down their attack. Wouldn't be long now...

It was at this moment that the Sands of Time chose to activate.

* * *

While being chased around by a swarm of blue-skinned Anti-Fairies, Jake Long had made a swift exit from Anti-Fairy World through another silver hole in space-time, before the little creatures could use their Bad Luck Magic to 'accidentally' break the griffin's egg. Now both he and Fu Dog were wandering around in a place that Fu Dog had identified as Infinity, and Jake absolutely hated it. There was nothing here, no life, no movement.

Only the colour white.

How could a place like this even exist? What was the point? After all the excitement of the previous worlds, this one was terribly dull. Perhaps the point of this world was to make you think, to engage in a bit of self-reflection. If it really was the aim, then it had worked spectacularly on Jake. There hadn't been time to think before. The portals always appeared before Jake could do anything about them. But here there really was nothing else to do but stare at white all day long, and Jake's mind had inevitably started to wander.

"Fu Dog."

"Yeah?"

"I've been thinking. Don't you think it's odd that these portals just... appear? I mean, why do always they appear right next to _us_? And it's always after I rescue the egg, too."

"I dunno. I kinda figured someone's gotten in over their head with the time streams. A time machine gone awry, or a failed experiment with time, something to do with the griffin egg. Wouldn't be the first time, and it probably won't be the last. I'm sure the Dragon Council know about it, though, there's no way something as big as this would go unnoticed. And they'll bring us back, don't you worry about that."

Jake stopped walking. "Well, you wanna know what I think? I'm starting to think that the portals aren't a coincidence. Maybe someone's creating them on purpose. Leading us on."

This got Fu thinking for a moment. "What, you mean like a test? What makes you think that?"

"Why else would that professor's puzzle crop up again? I mean, it's impossible. What are the odds? It's almost like I _had_ to solve it."

Jake started to walk again, and Fu, with his short legs, ran a little to keep up with the dragon's longer strides. "But, kid, I can't think of anyone besides the Dragon Elders who would be able to create portals outside the confines of our own world. None of the other magical creatures have that kind of power."

"Who says it has to be someone from our world? For all we know, that puzzle-hat could be the mastermind behind it all."

"Nah, he didn't seem like the type to use magic. I don't think it was him. Either way, we don't have a choice. We'd be stranded in those other worlds if we didn't go through the portals..."

"What is this place, anyway? Infinity?" Jake came to a stop again, gesturing to his surroundings with one dragon arm, uneasy with the lack of any physical signs as to which way was down. As someone used to flying quickly and used to visual cues like horizons and stars - and, above all, used to the pull of gravity - it was making him feel rather queasy. "What does that even mean?"

"You're looking at the edge of all reality, kid," said Fu, the veteran time traveller. He sat down on his rump. "An infinite expanse, connected to all times and worlds. All your Big Bangs and your World Serpents and your Pan Ku eggs meet up here."

"Uh-huh," said Jake, placing the egg on the ground and sitting down beside it in order to quash the feeling of nausea that was bubbling in his stomach. Since he was far more sensitive to his surroundings when he was in his dragon form, he transformed back to his human form to see if this would help. He almost immediately felt much better, but he still was getting fed up of walking from nowhere to nowhere.

"How are we supposed to get back inside, to where we belong?"

"Back? If we really are being led, then this seems like a very good final destination to me."

"Okay, so what are we supposed to do? The egg is fine. Every time we've gone to another world, the egg's been in some kind of danger. But here? I'm gonna go crazy if nothing happens here in the next minute!"

At that moment, the 'air' around them fizzled, and bolts of lightning of varying sizes suddenly appeared, striking from any and every possible direction.

"Tch," said Fu, leaping to his feet, "you just had to go and say that, didn't you?"

Jake stood up, holding the egg protectively, and he grinned. Finally, some action again!

"No," said Fu, seeing his companion's expression and shaking his own head, "this is not good, _not good at all_!"

"Why? I mean, it must be why we're here."

"This is the framework of all reality! If this place goes, everything does. Think if something altered the Big Bang. No amount of time travel could fix that!"

Fu's eyes followed the lightning, and, for some reason, the electrical strikes seemed to avoid their general area, as if there was some kind of invisible force repelling them. Maybe the lightning was currently only affecting the dimension, and not these two creatures that were from outside said dimension.

"Right," said Jake, still bursting with dragonish bravado. He was not unlike Omi, in that he constantly craved an opportunity to prove himself, and saving all reality would be one for the history books for sure. "So our mystery person, if there is one, wants us to fix all reality." But here he frowned. "How?"

How _did_ one go about saving all existence in a blank place like this?

"Good question," said Fu.

As if to answer, a new Time-error appeared next to them, but, if anything, Jake was even more confused by this. "Are we supposed to go inside? Or are we supposed to fix things here?"

"Maybe the griffin is the key," said Fu Dog.

"Say whut?"

"Well... griffins are supposed to help remember things that were once forgotten. They can remember forgotten timelines. Maybe there's something more to them that I didn't know about... Maybe the griffin's responsible for our portals... Maybe they're all worried someone's going to give reality a complete makeover."

"So... some evil guy's trying to destroy reality," Jake surmised, "and the griffins can sense it." He punched a fist into the air. "Nothing the American Dragon can't handle. I am all charged up!"

"Yeah, don't get too overconfident over there, kid."

"Ah, it'll be no problem, you'll see," Jake said, with all the pride of a male cockerel strutting all around the farm. "I'll get to the bottom of this, beat the bad guy, or guys, and then everything'll be back to normal."

Fu Dog grumbled, getting a bit fed up himself. There was just no talking to some people. Why was _he_ always the one that had to dragged along on all these adventures? Why couldn't he just lie down in front of the couch, and just be a dog for a change? Silly dragons and their silly notions of justice. Sometimes he thought about going back to the life of crime...

...But then he always remembered Jake's grandpa, and how the old guy had steered him away from all his bad habits with that very same dragon bravery.

Well, almost all his bad habits. There was still the gambling.

"Wait - what's that?" said Jake.

A pearly white Chinese dragon, about seven metres long, came into view, dodging past the lightning bolts as if flying through Infinity was a daily habit. It landed close to Jake and Fu Dog, where they noted that it had very doggish features - long whiskers, and a wet, doggy nose, and floppy ears.

"Hoo, boy. Another dragon," said Fu Dog, somewhat grumpily.

"Hi," said Jake, trying to be a little more friendly. But what was he supposed to say to something so big, that had just decided it was going to land like this in the middle of nowhere?

"This is it," said the dog-dragon seriously.

"Er..." was all Jake managed to say.

The dog-dragon didn't seem bothered with trivialities such as names, though perhaps the lightning had something to do with it. This was a dragon on a mission. "This is the boundary between one reality and the next. But it's all about to collapse, unless we can do something about it."

"Er... are you the person responsible for all our Time-errors?"

"No. I'm just a Luck Dragon. But I know who is responsible. I'm here to tell you that you need to stop Phantom."

"Phantom?" said Fu Dog. "Who's that?"

"He's your enemy. He's got to be stopped, before it's too late, and reality as we know it ceases to exist. That's why all these lightning bolts have appeared."

"Aha!" said Jake, happy to have a name to pin onto his "bad guy". "Now we're getting somewhere!"

_All right_, thought Fu Dog darkly, seeing Jake's expression and again becoming cross, _enough's enough._ "Hey, Luck Dragon! You take dollars as a form of payment?"

"Er... well... I suppose money's always useful... Why do you ask?"

"Twenty dollars says Jake makes a botch-up and loses against Phantom."

Jake went from being all fired up, to surprised to outraged in the blink of an eye. "Wha - Fu Dog!"

"What? I gotta make a living somehow."

The larger dragon chuckled. "You're on, little doggy. But why would you bet against your own companion?"

Jake answered first. "Because he's a jerk like that."

"Call it 'motivation'," said Fu.

"Pfffff." Jake was about to ask where they could find this Phantom and what he looked like, but before he could ask any more questions, the Luck Dragon took off, and the two were alone once more.

"O-kay. That was a bit random," said Jake. "Infinity is, well, you know - infinite in size. And he just happened to have the right information for us, and just _happened_ to know where to find us, just like that?"

"He did say he was a _Luck_ dragon," said Fu Dog.

Suddenly there was a big change; the dimension of Infinity changed from the colour white to the colour purple, and this time Jake and Fu Dog were affected as well. They saw themselves slowly take on a purple hue to match their environment.

"Woah..." said Jake, staring at the purple skin on his right arm in amazement. He was used to having red dragon scales, not purple human skin. "Everything's turned to purple. Even the egg. What does it mean?"

Fu's expression and tone were serious. "It's like Lucky said. Someone's changing reality, big-time. Our friend Phantom, by the sounds of things."

"To the colour purple? How do we change it back?"

At the same time, they both looked at the Time-error, which was still swirling - the only thing that wasn't purple.

Jake posed dramatically. "Ha! Of course! That's our ticket. He'd better watch out! Jake Long is about to lay the smackdown!"

_I'm sure he's shaking in his boots,_ thought Fu Dog with a wry grin.

* * *

**Extra Halloween note:** This fic was originally meant to be a one-shot horror for Halloween, where Jack accidentally releases a ghost, gets possessed and goes on a murderous rampage. However, the ghost was an OC ghost instead of Dark Danny, and there was no time loop. No Dashi or Chase or characters from other fandoms, just psycho-Jack versus the Xiaolin warriors. Everyone died in hideously messy ways, and that was the end of that. You can guess how well that story plan turned out.


	13. Chapter 12: Out of Time

**Chapter 12: Out of Time**

* * *

The intense, dazzling red subsided, and Omi opened his eyes, dizziness whirling inside his head, and his stomach churning like a food blender. The world spun round as he stood up, and he staggered for a bit before regaining his balance.

"Owie..." He sat back down, reaching a shaky arm out to pick up the overturned Sands of Time.

One advantage of being a ghost was that you didn't have to worry about physical things like nausea, or standing up straight, because you didn't have a stomach, or any legs. As it was, Jack recovered much faster than Omi did. He floated and moved his head round in order to take in the panoramic view.

They were on high ground, where rocks with lichen surrounded them, and a brisk wind blew; and laid out before them was a beautiful valley, with the stunning greens of trees covering the hills on the valley's shoulders, and a sparkling river flowing through that reflected back the full white light of the sun. There were torrential crashing noises from the river here, where it fell as a waterfall a little further upstream.

_I recognise this place,_ thought Jack. _Those rocks..._ Their formation was very distinctive, three long head-shaped rocks, with a natural arch looming over the last one. He'd flown through here many times before. Very nearby, on the mountain range...

"We are near the Xiaolin temple," Omi said, confirming Jack's thoughts.

"Okay - but where's Dan?" Jack looked over the river to the other side. No ghost there... Where was he? Why wasn't he attacking them? Had he been sent somewhere else?

"Dan?" said Omi, standing up again. He was feeling a bit better now, especially now that he could feel his Water chi again. "Who is Dan?"

"Dan! Danny! Phantom! The ghost!"

"The ghost's name is Danny?"

"Yes! Danny Phantom!"

"A demon spirit of death should not have a name as dull as Danny," said Omi, who'd thought that the letter 'D' on the ghost's chest had stood for demon, maybe death, maybe despair - but certainly not _Danny_.

Jack snort-laughed, despite the situation. The fact that he was dead and now a blue, hovering ghost hadn't quite sunk in yet, mainly due to the mad rush of the battle moments before. There hadn't been time to think about it then, and he still seemed to be operating on some kind of manic battle-high right now.

"Why don't you tell him that? I'm sure he'd love to hear it."

"Perhaps I will. I will tell Danny the demon-phantom that he should have a better name."

He said this with a determined look, and then, slowly, Jack saw the tear fall down Omi's cheek.

_Oh, oh_, thought Jack. _He's thinking about Raimundo, about what he saw._

Jack didn't really care much for Raimundo, but he'd never wanted to _dismember_ him. Plus, he'd never seen Omi lose hope. Somehow the sight of him crying was disquieting. Omi never gave up. Never. It was an unwritten rule, as intrinsic to his core self as being the Dragon of Water was.

Omi couldn't give up. Jack refused to believe it. Omi was supposed to be the one saving _him_, not the other way round... That's how the hero-villain stuff worked, right?

But now _he_ was a ghost...

And now the thought that had been denied access earlier by the rush of battle finally came swooping in. He was dead.

Jack felt an overwhelming feeling of despair come over him, but then he gathered himself, and the feeling left as soon as it had come. There had to be a way to reverse this, right? But he'd need the cue-ball's help. And Omi wasn't going to be helping anyone if he was stuck in a depressive state.

"Omi, I know it's kind of difficult, but you have to try and forget about it. It wasn't real."

Omi sniffled and stopped, and he stared at Jack, mildly incredulous. Jack Spicer, evil boy genius, was... trying to cheer him up?

"Think of it like... one of my robots, eh? My Jack-bot, my Chameleon-bot, they're really good imitations, but they're still not real people, no..." He gulped suddenly, looking as though this was hard for to admit. "...No matter how much I wish they were. Raimundo was just an image he conjured."

"I..."

"Dan... He's a sadist. He did that on purpose because he knew it would break you emotionally. And, then, when you're on the floor, a quivering wreck - he'll move in for the kill. That's what he does to people, to his victims... assuming he doesn't bypass the first part completely and blow them to pieces first instead. He does that too."

The last sentence held a melancholy tinge, and then Omi remembered - or perhaps it sunk in for him, for the first time - that Jack was dead. The Danny phantom, that evil monster, had killed Jack, for real. That put things in perspective. What right did he have to be sad? At least he was still alive. It had been a horrible, horrible nightmare, but... yes.

It wasn't real. It helped to think of the Raimundo as a Raimundo-bot, yes.

Omi smiled up at Jack, and then stared down, frowning at something in the distance. It was the reflection in the water that saved him. He spotted the flying green coming from behind him just in time and dodged, somersaulting round to face his foe. Phantom, however, was nowhere to be seen.

_He's invisible,_ said Jack to Omi, adding to himself that Danny - or Dan, as he'd decided on calling him, for short - was a lot more corporeal than your average ghost; perhaps the temporal displacement had affected him in some way because of that, and that was why he'd taken a while to attack? One could only hope.

"You do not scare me, demon-phantom!" Omi bellowed into the air, his rage a fiery supplement to his rekindled self-confidence. "I know your game!"

"This isn't a game," Dan hissed, still invisible, and flying around very fast and a little above them, judging from the sound of his voice. "This time is for _keeps_."

_This is just going to end up like before,_ said Jack in Omi's mind. _But we might not get so lucky this time._

_Jack, you must leave me_, Omi replied.

_What?_

_You must get help. Do not worry about me; I have a plan._

_Are you sure?_

_Yes, Jack Spicer. I have never been more sure. This is my home, I have lived here all my life._

_You have the home advantage_, Jack finished. He paused for a moment, and when he next spoke, his voice held a trace of admiration.

_You know, I really think you can do it. If anyone can beat him it's you, Omi._

Jack exited Omi's body before Omi could offer him his thanks, but continued to help Omi until there was an opening and he left the riverside completely. He had a couple of rather less hopeful thoughts as he flew rapidly closer to the temple, which were: _what if we're not in our own time period? And even if we are, how am I going to get the other monks to listen? They're not going to believe me._

He'd just have to hope for the best.

Meanwhile, Omi continued to duck and weave. In the dark hall-room, there had not been that much space for Omi to manoeuvre, but out here in the open, where there were several trees and rocks to hide behind, it was difficult for Dan to hit his continually moving target. Finally, Danny changed tact and fired a volley of blasts down at Omi from all directions, almost impossible to dodge, and Omi dodged - by jumping into a Golden Tiger Claw hole.

Dan hissed a curse, becoming visible. In response, a giant wave of water rose up from the river's edge and came crashing down on the ghost, solidifying as ice as soon as it touched him. He was completely frozen.

Omi peered out from his hiding place, behind one of the strangely shaped rocks. His gut feeling told him that the ice wouldn't hold for long, so he Tiger Clawed a portal again, this time to the temple. It wasn't very often that he admitted it, but he needed help.

A couple of seconds later, Dan burst free from the ice, growling lowly, and he glared in the direction of the temple. He'd incinerate the monks' home; raze the entire area to the ground. That was what he'd do. But they'd be expecting him...

And then suddenly, a small smile appeared. He took off in the direction of Jack's house, a new idea forming inside his twisted head.

The Shard of Lightning. They wouldn't expect that.

* * *

Dashi stared down at the angry boy threatening him with a sword. With his green hat and pointy ears, he looked like one of Santa's little elves. He too had a Londonese accent, but if Layton was the gentleman of London, and Luke was the cheeky rascal of London, then this kid was the weirdo that sat next to you at the back of a London double-decker bus.

"I've had enough of this," the elf-kid growled. "Get the hell out of my world!"

"Wait, we're here to help," said Dashi, trying hard not to laugh at the green costume. The sword was certainly no joke; the kid looked like he knew how to use it.

"We're going to try and fix the time streams," said Chase, though he didn't look bothered either way. If they had to beat these two to save their universe and all of reality - then so be it.

"Link," said the old man sternly. "They're the first ones to mention time streams. If they can help at all, in any way..."

"Fine," said Link shortly, sheathing his sword. "Maybe you can start by telling us what that thing over there is."

"Well, damn," said Dashi. On the other side of the beach was a purple crystal as big as a cottage.

"That's a heck of lot bigger than the other ones, Dashi," said Dojo, in his usual place around the monk's shoulders.

"It has a different form too; more crystalline," noted Chase.

"A huge bulk of the pieces have deposited themselves here, I think," said Dashi.

The old man exchanged glances with Link. So they _did_ know what was going on...

There was half a minute of introductions and names being exchanged, and then attention returned to the task at hand.

"You probably already know this, but our time stream is corrupted," said Oshus. "It is leading to universes outside its given boundaries. Do you have any idea why?"

"A Time-error. A tear in space-time," Dashi clarified, after receiving blank looks.

"Those silver swirly holes to other worlds?" said Link.

"It's to do with a self-generating time loop that suddenly appeared in our world," Dashi continued. "The purple pieces are physical representations of our world's space-time, and every time the loop repeats, the pieces... merge with themselves, I suppose. They grow in size. That house-sized one over there must have the bulk of it all."

"But why do they appear in our world?" said Oshus.

"We haven't got much time, but I'll tell you what I know."

Dashi explained about Shen Gong Wu and their magical properties. He also spoke about the Sands of Time and the Shard of Lightning's ability to create Time-errors when used at the same time, and how he'd created a Time-error by accident in the outer dimension called Infinity. He then continued:

"The timeline in our world proceeds as normal, when suddenly the old Time-error, the one I'd mistakenly created, is reopened by an unknown factor, and this changes our timeline."

"It's not an unknown factor," Chase put in. "It's that... whatever was behind the door. In the dimension of Infinity, whatever it was you found when you messed up the universe the first time."

"_What?_" It was unusual to see Dashi's normally cool, laid-back expression turn to worry, and that in itself was worrying indeed. He paled, very visibly. "Why didn't you say anything sooner?"

"You never told us what happened in there, Dashi, and we never dared ask. Dojo thought it might have been some kind of evil spirit, but you looked like you'd seen death in there. We never asked. I suppose I didn't think much of it now because I have no real need to be afraid of a mere ghost."

_Oh really_, thought Dashi darkly, annoyed with Chase's arrogance. Phantom had not been easy to defeat, and only an idiot with a death-wish would think otherwise.

_Let's see how well you handle the homicidal ghost by yourself, then. Since the only reason you're here helping me is to save your own ass and increase your own power, I'd be doing the world a favour if I left you to Phantom..._

Somehow Chase seemed to know Dashi was annoyed, even though Dashi's expression had gone back to laid-back mode. "But if you're worried... I will exercise caution. Advice from you would be... very much appreciated."

For just the briefest of moments, Chase looked at him with a hint of one of the old looks he used to give him: _Dashi can do anything_.

And just like that, Dashi's bitter anger abated. _He still has faith in me? After all that time, without a soul?_ _He believes in me?_

Chase really did have an odd sense of honour, didn't he?

_But I can't do everything! Everyone expects so much from me, and I don't even know if I can repair the damage, it's such a big thing to fix...!_

_And even if I can fix it all, even with all my time stream knowledge... I can't help you, Chase!_

"Are you all right?" said Chase, surprising Dashi even further.

"Yeah, yeah," said Dashi offhandedly, again trying to mask his inner thoughts by covering it with an air of carefree nonchalance. Oshus and Link exchanged glances but said nothing; it was becoming obvious to them that there was some history between the other two, but now was not the time to ask questions about it.

"Uh, where was I...? Oh, yeah. Let's see..." He started to pace slowly, right hand on his chin in thought.

"So, this evil spirit opens the tear in space-time. This makes our world's original timeline... malfunction. Glitch. In this glitched timeline, the Sands of Time reactivates prematurely in Chase's present, my future. Somehow this new timeline leads to the destruction of our universe, and that sends all the pieces across different worlds. Then, because the timeline's now trapped in a loop, the loop sends the pieces across the worlds over and over again. That's more or less what we know."

Oshus nodded, seeming to get the gist of it.

"Um, well, I don't really get it," Link said, taking off his green hat for a moment and adjusting his hair. "But don't mind me. Just let me know where you get to the part where you say what we have to do to _fix_ it."

POK!

The old man had bashed Link on the head with his stick.

"Idiot! If you're the only one who can use that sword, then you need to understand what you're doing otherwise you can't fix it."

"What's the deal with the sword?" Dashi asked.

"It can control the time streams of our world," said Oshus. "Much like one of your Shen Gong Wu, if I'm understanding you correctly."

"Oh, right. Magical time-bending sword. Should have seen that one coming. In that case... let's see if a visual presentation helps. It'll help me, at least."

"Do we really have time for this?" Chase hissed, knowing when a long Dashi explanation was forthcoming. "If that sword really is like a Shen Gong Wu and the boy knows how to use it -"

"We don't know how to fix the time streams of other worlds," Oshus interrupted. "Time is leaking and we don't know how to plug the hole, as it were. Link kept making more of the space-time portals instead of closing the one we initially had. And I for one would very much like to know how to get rid of that purple eyesore of a rock. It's ruining my nice beach."

"I think we have a bit of borrowed time thanks to the dinosaurs," said Dashi, "so I'll try and make it quick."

Link, Oshus and Chase stood in a line, Chase folding his arms in a sarcastic _here we go_ manner, as Dashi now played the part of teacher with a piece of magical chalk.

He traced a horizontal line in the air from left to right with his index finger, a blue line magically appearing where he'd drawn it.

"So... this blue line here is our universe. The original timeline. Let's see... I'll call it timeline A."

"Okay," said Link.

"And our Friendly Ghost makes timeline A glitch..." He drew a red 'X' in the middle of the blue line. "X marks the spot."

"Right..."

Dashi swiped at the mid-air drawing, and the blue line dissipated like smoke, but only the right half of the line disappeared. The blue line on the left of the red 'X' remained in place, which made the whole thing look a bit like a stick drawing of a magic wand lying sideways.

He then drew a new horizontal line, this time coloured red, on the right-hand side of the X.

"X marks the spot," he repeated.

"Red only on that side?" said Dojo, still curled around Dashi's shoulders.

"The timeline's been changed, but only _after_ the glitch," said Dashi.

"This would be the first instance of the loop," said Chase. "The first time it played out. When I first realised something was wrong. When I became a time paradox."

"Exactly, but you're getting ahead of yourself."

"Well, I think I've got it so far," said Link.

"Good, because it's going to get messy," Dashi said. "We'll call this semi-changed timeline 'timeline B'. So, towards the end of timeline B - a long way away in my future - the Sands of Time reactivates sooner than it should have done. Chase notices this. And then, right at the end of B, the universe blows up, or implodes or... throws a wobbly."

He scribbled a scraggly mess of lines at the right end of the right-hand red line to illustrate the universe throwing a wobbly.

"And as a result these purple pieces of glass get thrown across time and space."

He drew lots of simple purple triangles dotted around the main picture.

"This changes _my_ present, so that instead of building a temple like I was planning to do, I'm now hopping across worlds looking for these purple pieces."

He swiped at the drawing, and this time the blue line on the left disappeared, leaving the red X and the right-hand red line. He drew a green line on the left.

"Timeline C," said Link, nodding.

"The first repetition of the loop, and all subsequent ones," said Chase.

"What about me?" said Dojo. "You skipped forward to my time, didn't you?"

"Not sure about you," said Dashi. "In your timeline the temple was complete, so you'd be either A or B. Probably B."

"But your timeline C overwrites my one, doesn't it?" said Dojo. "How were you able to travel to it? I shouldn't even exist, should I?"

"Uh..." said Dashi, temporarily stumped.

"I hate time paradoxes," said Chase simply.

"The Dojo paradox," said Dashi thoughtfully. "In theory, this should all happen instantaneously. Timeline B doesn't even have a chance to exist. Come to think of it, Chase, you should have stopped existing too. The moment the timeline 'glitched', both timelines would instantly be overwritten by C. How could you even notice anything was wrong? Your timeline - and memories - should have changed. You should have become trapped within the loop, along with everyone else from that time period."

"I know," said Chase, "that's why I said it was a paradox. It's not supposed to make sense. But I thought you said that time wasn't always linear? Sometimes it goes side to side, like a meandering river. Your diagram doesn't factor that in. Maybe Dojo and I were in separate pockets of time alongside the main timeline?"

Dashi was impressed. "Oh, of course...! Oxbow lakes. Yeah, that's probably it. Woah. You actually listened to all that space-time stuff, didn't you? Half the time I was making it up, you know."

"Don't give me that," said Chase crossly, who knew Dashi better than that. He pushed on, himself fed up with Dashi's attitude. "Were you or were you not the one who created the Eagle Scope? I am certain that no matter how much you'd have people believe you were making it up as you went along, your supposedly on-the-fly theories always had some basis in reality. How else would you have been able to create the Sands of Time in the first place?"

"It didn't exactly work properly the first time," said Dashi stubbornly, not quite sure why he was disagreeing with Chase. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that Chase had been a stupid idiot and gone over to the Heylin side!

"And that's what makes you such a genius, the ability to improvise and adapt when things go wrong," said Chase. "You learn quickly and turn a defeat into a success. You're a lot smarter than people would think, at first glance... And that's what you want them to think. You certainly fooled Wuya; she always thought you were a bumbling idiot. She thought you were pretending to be smarter than you really were, but, the thing is, Dashi, you really _are_ that smart."

Dashi breathed out slowly through his nose. No point in denying it. Chase was spot on, of course. He'd obviously failed in trying to hide his inner doubts, or maybe it was just that Chase knew him too well and it was only now that he was evil and had lived for such a long time that he wasn't holding back his opinions any more.

Chase's tone was less harsh when he said, "You became world famous after defeating Wuya, Dashi. The entire world recognised your prowess. And when we started up the Xiaolin temple, you were unanimously declared grandmaster of the temple not only by all the new recruits who'd joined, but by all the people you'd saved - a title well earned."

Grandmaster...

This was Chase's way of rallying him, he supposed. He'd made this mess by creating the Sands of Time - but at the same time, that made him the very person qualified to make things right. He _would_ fix this. It was time to do what he always did at times like these: improvise.

There _was_ something he could try, a way to pull everything back. He didn't know if it would work, and it would be incredibly risky - it would take everything he had, every ounce of chi and spiritual finesse that he possessed - but trying would be at least better than sitting and waiting for everything to vanish into non-existence. If he had to sacrifice himself in order to save all of reality... then so be it. Chase would most likely be pissed off, because he definitely wasn't going to tell him any of this, but that was to be expected.

"Saving the world, eh? Sounds like Link here, by all accounts," said Oshus.

"Was that a _compliment_?" said Link.

"No. The only accounts I've heard are yours, so I daresay they're rather biased."

"Oh thank you so very much," said Link sarcastically. "Bloody old coot."

"We're getting sidetracked here," said Dashi, turning back round to face his mid-air painting of the green-red line, with the X in the middle, so that he didn't have to look at Chase in the eye. Becoming immortal had obviously given Chase a lot of shrewd insight, and he wasn't sure he could face that right now. "Where was I?"

"Timeline C," said Dojo helpfully. "The universe threw those purple pieces back in time. And Chase and I were trapped in the oxbow lakes that were leftovers of the other timelines."

"Oh yes."

Dashi scribbled a few erratic letter U's and C's to represent outer oxbow lakes. Then, starting from the middle of the X, he drew a red circle, curving down and then right, round in an anti-clockwise direction, making sure to touch the end of the horizontal line as he went up and left, and ending the circle at the top middle of the X.

"That's the loop," said Link.

"Yes." Dashi pointed to the right hand red line, which now was the diameter of the circle.

"The collapse causes this half of timeline C to remain stuck in a loop, where the universe keeps collapsing at the end and then resets itself. It's like a… a bubble of time, superimposed on the timeline axis, eternally trapped by a temporal feedback loop."

He ran his finger left to right along the left hand green line, without touching it.

"We have part of a new timeline, where the temple wasn't built, but it only runs up until a certain point and then wham!" – here his finger met the X and the red circle – "the looped timeline kicks in."

Chase nodded as he remembered the odd red force-field that he'd encountered while trying to approach the original Time-error. "No one can get in, no one can get out," he said.

"So it doesn't matter what we do," Dojo concluded glumly. "We're outside the red 'bubble' but no matter how much the timeline before the loop changes, the loop will always remain in place. The universe will always go kersplat."

"Yes and no."

"And what does _that_ mean?" said Chase.

"Well, don't forget, those pieces -" Dashi pointed to a small purple triangle "- aren't spread out across one new timeline, they're actually spread out across several, and across different worlds, to boot. And all the timelines lead to the bubble."

He swiped again, completely rubbing out the current picture, including the triangles. He then drew a new red circle, adding eight red lines sticking out from the circle, like a simple drawing of the sun.

"Ah!" said Oshus. "Now I'm beginning to see the whole picture. The glass pieces are forcing the time streams to flow towards the loop, aren't they?"

"Yes." Dashi added one purple triangle to the ends of each of the red lines. "Yes. Exactly. I think the purple fragments are sustaining the links between the timelines, which are in turn sustaining the red bubble in the middle. In other words, the purple pieces are siphoning time streams from other worlds in order to sustain the loop."

He took a deep breath, and then ploughed on with what he'd discovered by being inside one of the pieces himself. The red, and the blue.

"The pieces are, in fact, the Sands of Time and the Shard of Lightning broken up into pieces. That's what caused the universe to explode: _their_ explosion. Their remnants fused and caused a colossal tear in space-time, a tear the size of the universe."

Chase blinked; he'd suspected something of this nature, because there was no way the Shen Gong Wu couldn't be involved in all of this. But it was still a surprise to have it all confirmed. If the purple pieces were fusions of the Sands of Time and Shard of Lightning, then they were acting like mini Time-error factories. Someone must have used the Shard of Lightning and the Sands of Time together at the same time, just before the universe ended, and started the whole chain of events... and he had a pretty good idea who that someone was.

"And their remnants have made - and are probably still making - several rips in space-time, across the timelines of different worlds," said Oshus. "Yes, yes, I see now. And each time the loop iterates, the pieces merge with one another and grow larger, and the rips become larger. Self-perpetuating indeed. But it can't go on forever. Sooner or later, we'll run out of time. Literally; the time streams will run out."

"And then all of reality will collapse," said Chase. "Every world, every timeline, every universe in this reality will cease to be. I hope you've got a plan, Dashi."

"No, not really. But since when has that ever stopped me? After all, consider this_: _we've _already_ run out of time."


	14. Chapter 13: Reality's Edge

**Chapter 13: Reality's Edge**

* * *

"You wanna run that by me again?" said Link, who, as a designated hero, wasn't used to _not_ saving the day, and it showed in his horrified expression.

"Oh, blast," said Chase. He again remembered his observations of the original Time-error, and of that odd jelly-like barrier that had prevented him from going any further. "The time inside the loop is running at a different speed to the time outside the loop, and indeed to everywhere else. It's out of control. Who knows how many times it's gone round? Twenty? Two hundred? Two million?"

"Different worlds have different speeds anyway," said Dashi, "but the loop's speed is abnormally fast. As Chase said, it's gone round too many times. It's draining everything. Reality is about to collapse under the strain. I suspect the only reason it hasn't already done so is because of those dinosaurs."

"Dinosaurs?" said Link shortly. "You've left everything to magic dinosaurs? And you've spent all this precious time that we _don't_ have explaining when you could have been trying to fix everything?"

It was Chase who shrugged. "Annoying, isn't he? So blasé. I'll bet he's had a plan in mind for ages. He knows exactly what he's doing."

Dashi hid his worry with a calm smile. This time Chase had only got it half-right. Of course, he did have his plan, but he had no idea whether it was going to work. Reversing the flow of an infinitesimal amount of time streams compacted tightly in the form of time loops wasn't exactly a move that you could practice every Sunday afternoon. It was going to take a strain on him, and he honestly wasn't sure if his poor old body, with its finite limitations, was going to be able to hold itself together.

There was also the separate problem of Phantom, who'd obviously escaped and was out there, somewhere in the many worlds. Unfortunately he had seen Dashi's memories when they had met before; he knew how Dashi worked and would more than likely grant no quarter if they were to meet again. But, on the other hand, there was a good chance that he had never seen Heylin-powered Chase...

"I think the other guardians of time, from other worlds, have partially realised the danger, and are all trying to save reality," Dashi said. "There's no way those two dinosaurs could hold it all together by themselves."

_There's no way I could fix this without their help, either, _he added to himself grimly. _I just hope enough of them have realised what's going on, and what they need to do when I try my idea, otherwise we're dead. Link's lucky that he's got me to tell him exactly what to do, but all the others... who have they got?_

But... he had to remember what was at stake. There was no room for doubt now.

"So, we still have a bit of borrowed time," he continued, to Link. "We'd better make it count."

"Right," said the elf-boy, who, despite being constantly disgruntled about being a hero, was actually pretty reliable when it came to the big tasks. The imminent end of reality had a way of motivating people to do something about it.

"What you'll need to do isn't really hard, and actually I'm glad someone else is here to help, but if you do it wrong we're all screwed. Oshus is right: it's a lot easier if you understand what's going on so that you know what it is you're trying to fix."

"No pressure, then. What can I do?"

"I don't know how the sword works, but you need to... hold the loop - all the loops - in place while I look through all the glass fragments. We can't just pop the bubble without everything falling to pieces, you see."

"You're certain this will work?"

"Not a hundred percent certain, no. But the glass pieces are all like mega Shen Gong Wu, and originally the Shen Gong Wu were all infused with my chi. I think I should be able to... rewind them back, revert them to their previous state. It'll be like untangling the biggest mass of wires in existence," he pointed to the purple crystalline mass on the beach, "and that crystal there is a part of the knot. So when I try to restore everything, I need you, Link, to point the sword at the huge Time-error that will appear, and hold back the energy that you'll feel... assuming the sword lets you feel the energy."

"It does," said Oshus.

"Hold it back?" said Link. "Is that all I need to do?"

"Yes," said Dashi. "But sometimes it'll swirl and change, and you'll need to react accordingly. You should be able to feel the bulge of the loop, and maybe even see it in your mind's eye. If it looks like it's going left, you need to push to the right, and vice versa. Basically, you need to push in the opposite direction, until I say to stop; then you'll need to pull out of the Time-error. Is that clear?"

"Got it."

Dashi nodded, and sat down cross-legged, in front of the house-sized crystal. He placed the four fragments in front of him, in a square on the sand. While he closed his eyes, Dojo slithered down and across the sand, asking Oshus to let him on his shoulders, and the old man accepted. Link unsheathed his sword.

Chase then sat down next to Dashi on the sand, also cross-legged. "Dashi. I must ask you something."

Dashi kept his eyes closed. "Trying to pause an event that transcends the size of all universes and reverse it so it doesn't happen is a big job. I need to concentrate."

Chase ignored this. "Are you going to tell me about this evil spirit that has you so spooked?"

"And why should I do that?" said Dashi, eyes still closed, but with a nasty grin appearing. "I'm sure it'll be no problem for someone like you."

Chase glared at him. "Are you really going to jeopardize our chances of saving all of reality over a petty grudge?"

Now Dashi opened his eyes, and he would have responded with a glare of his own, but his heart wasn't in it, and he sighed. There wasn't any time to argue.

"He was a hero, who turned to the dark side," he said, and he gave Chase a pointed look, but didn't say anything further, since Oshus and Link were also listening, and at this very moment he didn't want to give them any reason to doubt Chase.

"A fallen Hero?" asked Oshus.

Dashi nodded. "With nothing left to lose," he said, and he turned his head back to Chase. "He has immense, wide-ranging destructive power, so don't give him the chance to charge up. He has powers of illusion and can bring your worst fears out from your subconscious. He can freeze you if you stay in one place for too long... I'll let you find out the rest. I'm sure you can handle it." This time Dashi's smile was genuine.

"Good," said Chase, standing up. "Thank you."

"Oh, and his name is Phantom. Danny Phantom."

"Okay," said Chase, figuring any information he could get out of Dashi would be useful.

"He's dressed in black and white."

Chase nodded. "Right."

"And he has flaming white hair."

"Okay," said Chase.

"And pale greeny-bluey skin."

"Understood," said Chase.

"And pointy fangs. And he glows a bit."

"_Okay_," said Chase, a little irritated. "I get it." He looked away and shrugged his shoulders. Dashi was going a bit overboard, now. He was pretty sure he'd recognise an evil spirit when he saw one. Wuya was quite unmistakable, after all.

"And no using magic."

"What?" said Chase, quickly whirling his head back round to look down at Dashi in annoyance. He was certain Dashi was doing this on purpose, as some kind of test, or something. Not to mention that he had the feeling that Dashi's plan involved using him as bait.

"Not with the Sands of Time and Shard of Lightning in their current state of being everywhere all at once, inside pieces of time loop and whatnot. I bet Phantom destroyed the Sands of Time and the Shard of Lightning at the same time they were both being used. That's what collapsed the universe, and what caused them to fuse and start the loop."

"This _is_ a ghost we're talking about?"

"You're thinking too small," said Dashi. "Just because the ghosts in our world are intangible and inconsequential, doesn't mean the ghosts of other worlds are. You want some advice? Don't underestimate him. In any case," he went on, and he spoke sternly now, in a voice that was not to be disobeyed, "I don't want you restarting another loop if I fix this one. As things currently stand, you're a time paradox and you shouldn't exist. The Sands of Time doesn't like time paradoxes, and neither does the Shard of Lightning."

"All right," said Chase, resisting the urge to roll his eyes. He turned away again, letting Link take his place beside Dashi.

Dashi shut his eyes, and slowed his breathing, ignoring everything in the outside world. He relaxed his muscles, and soon he was deep in meditation, light-headed, at one with his spirit. A few silent minutes passed as he searched through both the glass fragment and the crystal, for their common link. Once he'd found it, he'd be linked to all the other fragments, no matter where or when they were... And then hopefully the time guardians would help, in the same way Link and the dinosaurs were. That was the part of the plan he wasn't sure about, because once he established the link between all worlds, there was no going back. But, he didn't have a choice. Sometimes you just had to wing it.

And then there it was, the link to all pieces. Everything was in that split moment of time, when the Shard of Lightning and Sands of Time blew apart... he could feel it happening simultaneously, in all loops, within loops, within loops, almost infinitesimal, and it pushed against his spirit with all the gravitational force of a million black holes. But he was the master of the Shen Gong Wu. He pushed back.

And then there it was, the Time-error, encompassing the entire beach and everyone on it. Greyness swirled around and around, a vortex of space-time spiralling out of control. Link recoiled slightly from the change in surroundings, the force much stronger than he'd thought it would be, and he barely managed to hold his position. He desperately tried to hold the force in place, to stop the time streams from spilling over and popping the bubble, while Dashi undid the tangled mess of loops and loop pieces...

The Time-error expanded, and suddenly Link could see them all against a backdrop of pure white. Purple pieces inside pieces inside pieces inside pieces, a divide by zero situation. The force coming from them all - it was too much! Link strained hard, pushed right against his own limits. It was like being crushed by a herd of stampeding elephants.

But they were there. He could see them all. The other time guardians were there. Hordes of creatures stood alongside him, some human, most not; and with their magicks and their technologies, they too pushed as hard as they could.

The current, outermost loop kept going...

* * *

... And then Jack's house exploded.

Omi used the Sands of Time, thinking it would take him three weeks into the past. It tried to obey his wishes, but, due to the loop, it was still malfunctioning, and it only teleported them all across space, and not time, back to where it had dumped them before - near the Xiaolin temple.

After this, Jack used the Shard of Lightning, the only Shen Gong Wu he'd had time to access. But it didn't work on Dan. _The Shard of Lightning doesn't work on time paradoxes,_ Wuya had said. It was because they existed outside the flow of normal time, so they couldn't be slowed down in the same way.

Danny Phantom was a time paradox.

When something that shouldn't exist pours a tremendous amount of pure destructive energy into a space-time tear that _does_ exist, the result is the end of the universe. That had been Dashi's greatest fear, at the time he met Danny Phantom...

Dan charged his hands, sneering because he'd made sure that the Shard of Lightning was the only Shen Gong Wu Jack had had time to access. He knew about Dashi's mistake, and about how using the Shard together with the Sands of Time could break time. It was perfect. "Nice try, but you're out of time."

"We shall see," said Omi, holding up the Sands of Time.

_Go ahead_, thought Danny, _use the Sands of Time. I'll destroy your entire world._

The Shard of Lightning's powers were still in play, even if they weren't actually affecting anyone, and Dan prepared to fire one of the largest blasts he'd ever fired, the terrible green blasts he used on the towns and cities of his home world whenever he felt like killing on a grander scale. Enough to annihilate everything within a mile radius, but would it be enough to destroy the Shen Gong Wu?

"No, wait!" said Jack.

"Sands of - huh?" said Omi, looking at a point directly above Dan. "What is _that_?"

Dan followed his gaze - and several plates, glasses and cutlery fell down, crashing all over him.

"What the -?" snarled Dan.

It was a Time-error. Unknown to all present, it was the very same one that had caused Clockwork to note that this was the loop to take action.

"Woah, freaky," said Raimundo's voice on the other side. He'd been given the task to wash those dishes and the Time-error had just swallowed them up... On the other side of the portal, Raimundo backed away, but before anyone could react the Time-error disappeared, and the link was broken.

And then the Sands of Time _pulled_ on Omi. The red energy of the Sands of Time emerged as snaking tendrils, like a squid's tentacles. At the same time, blue strands of energy twisted out from the Shard of Lightning, which was still hovering under Jack's control.

"What's happening?" said Jack, being dragged towards Omi by the Shard.

Danny fired.

* * *

"Arrgh!" said Link. Still within the swirling vortex, Oshus had to quickly hold onto the sword, with Link, to keep Link from moving from his position.

"Keep it steady," came Dashi's voice, "I'm in the final loop, not done yet, we'll disappear into non-existence if you don't hold it... Wait till I say to stop..." He was nearly there, he could feel it. With the help of all the other time guardians, all the distortions across all the worlds were being repaired. Everything was being reset, as if none of it had happened... and he could feel his body being pulled apart. Stretching across with his spirit, he reached for one place in particular. Something that he could use as an anchor to reality.

"What's happening?" said Oshus. "I can feel it... He's... pulling on... what are they?"

"The Shen Gong Wu," said Chase. "Finally reverting to their original form."

* * *

The three energies came together in a primary colour mix of blue, green and red, and everything turned to white.

The dimension of Infinity.

The Sands of Time were glowing in a dull red colour now, the Shard a faded blue. Both Omi and Jack looked at each other, unsure of what to do in this world of white, and then, as one, turned to look at Dan. Dan growled, again ready to utterly wipe out everything in the immediate vicinity.

That was when a giant green crocodile-lizard barged into the side of his chest, throwing him off balance.

It wasn't Chase's style to charge in with so much physical force - he usually preferred not to use his transformed state if he could help it - but the element of surprise worked wonders in times like these; and, according to Dashi, the use of Heylin magic by another living time paradox would be the equivalent of lighting a match in a room filled with natural gas.

And sometimes, as Dashi would say, you just had to wing it.

The two paradoxes rolled around and around on the invisible floor. On the final roll, Chase landed on his back and kicked hard with both hind legs, pushing Dan off. Phantom righted himself and immediately fired a series of swift low-power shots, but Chase blocked the first couple of shots with a snappy wave of his tail, and the following shots were expertly avoided; in his lizard form, Chase was remarkably agile.

Phantom continued his barrage of shots, turning invisible mid-way through. Chase could sense him, identifying him as the peculiar power behind the white door, and, without even giving the slightest hint away, charged again into the invisible ghost, immediately galloping away afterwards as an angry Danny was shocked into visibility once more before he'd even realised what had happened.

Omi and Jack stared, gaping in impressed awe.

Then the most horrendous wailing brought Chase down to the ground - shockwaves of dizzying, disorientating energy, again and again and again. After a terrible minute, the noise finally subsided, and Chase struggled to get up on all fours.

_A howling wail like a banshee. Bit of an important power to miss out, Dashi_, he thought sourly, though a more traitorous part of his brain added that Dashi had also warned him not to underestimate Phantom, too. He shook himself like a dog shaking off water, standing up on two legs - and sensed, as well as felt, the energy freeze him in place.

_Dammit_, thought Chase. This was a situation worthy of the utmost damnation. Completely frozen. That was one of the powers Dashi _had_ warned him about... Omi and Jack were completely down for the count, too, both knocked out cold by the powerful wail attack.

As Dan stalked towards him with a haughty _now I've got you_ kind of gait, Chase thought that, while he could just break free, maybe it would be better if he stalled for time. He had an advantage in that Phantom hadn't made the connection between Chase and Dashi, because Dan had never seen Chase in his lizard form before. A rescue from Dashi would be the last thing the ghost was expecting.

Not that he needed rescuing. But... it would be nice if Dashi would hurry up and do some of the arse-kicking that he was famous for, so that Chase could get back to his own time.

"Why are you doing this?" he asked. That was usually a good one to ask, the kind of question that could potentially yield a very long answer if you had a particularly cocky person on the receiving end of the question. The thing was, both Dashi and Jack would have known that appealing to reason wouldn't ever work, and even Omi would have tossed out talking as an option. But Chase hadn't had the misfortune of seeing the ghost at his worst, and he was ready to try his luck.

Phantom's response was a raised eyebrow, his gaze indicating surprise - perhaps he hadn't expected a giant tiger-striped lizard to be sentient - and his stance gave off a _what business is it of yours?_ air, but then he shrugged.

"Because I can," he said simply. "Because I want to."

Destruction for destruction's sake? Destroying all of reality just for the hell of it? There was something about this that didn't quite make sense to Chase. What else had Dashi told him about Phantom? He noted the emblem on the front of his black and white suit, a kind of strange 'D', like a superhero...

"Weren't you a hero, once?" he asked. Phantom shrugged again, a _so what?_ reaction, followed by a _do I really care?_ smirk.

Chase frowned, in his lizard way, well aware of the irony in the question. He could almost hear the grandmaster's voice taunting him with a _pot calling kettle black much?_ remark, and he growled inwardly. Tell _him_ not to use magic? Well, he was going to try using a little. He may not have known what to do with time streams, but that didn't mean he didn't know what he was doing when it came to magic in general. He hadn't lived for fifteen hundred years without gaining a few tricks of his own.

He pushed out mentally, feeling Dan's consciousness. A little prod, a subtle jog to the memories...

...and the mind - that most miraculous of things - dredged up an old and unpleasant memory to the surface. Danny was once again the teenager who had watched his family die right before his eyes...

Suddenly, his expression flared into anger. Chase instantly noted the change in demeanour. It was amazing what a little Heylin magic could do.

"I was weak back then," the ghost hissed, clenching his fists, and focusing a scowl towards Chase. "I couldn't save anybody. Some _hero_," he all but spat. Chase couldn't tell whether the disgust and loathing from the other was being directed at him, or at himself. Probably a bit of both.

"But now... Now I'm powerful. Now I can do whatever I want." Danny didn't smile. It wasn't a boast.

Again, Chase was aware of the peculiarity of the situation, of him trying to persuade someone from doing the exact same thing he himself had done - use his powers for evil, for personal gain, for his own selfish cause... But the difference - and it was a pretty important difference, in Chase's opinion - was that Chase wasn't trying to extinguish all of existence with his dark powers.

"Why destroy everything?" he tried, again. "How is it everyone else's fault _you_ failed?"

"I hate you all," said Danny Phantom, his red eyes cold and with a bitterness that was reaching - almost touching - the cusp of sorrow. "You're all alive, breathing, laughing, happy... It sickens me."

_Aha, now we're getting somewhere,_ Chase thought._ That's what lies at the heart of his actions. Jealousy and hatred towards the living for just living._

The ghost glowered again, a glare so intense it was as if he was placing the entire blame for his messed up situation solely on Chase. Almost anyone else would have quailed. Chase merely stared back with dispassionate reptilian eyes: he was someone who could outstare a cat.

"Who _are_ you?" said Dan.

Chase responded with a crocodile grin of his very own. "Heh. Who I am is not really important... _Danny Phantom_."

Danny disagreed. "Did Clockwork send you to change my ways? _You're all wasting your time_."

Without warning, Phantom fired. Chase had been expecting an attack during the entire exchange, but the type of energy took him by surprise; it was a tingly, unpleasant, static electricity, and he was suddenly forced to change back to his human form. Mid-transformation, Dan fired a green blast square in Chase's chest, causing the Heylin master to fly backwards from the impact and crash to the ground. Dan narrowed his eyes, perhaps irritated that Chase had survived the blast; but he turned around and took off, flying in Omi and Jack's direction.

Chase groaned and stood up, only temporarily stunned, and not at all hurt, but berating himself for letting that happen. No wonder Dashi had been annoyed with him for being over-confident. He was certainly annoyed enough with himself. In the meantime, the ghost had taken the Sands of Time and the Shard of Lightning, and was now floating high above Chase in the whiteness, levitating the Shen Gong Wu in the air at both sides of him, and infusing them with some kind of lightning, presumably the same static energy he'd used just moments earlier.

Despite Dashi's warning, Chase was about to try using high level magic in order to reach the ghost - Phantom was certainly using his powers like nobody's business - but found that he couldn't access anything, not even his chi energy. The electrical energy had... shorted him out. How irritating!

"What are you doing?" he called, wondering how long this condition was going to last.

Dan didn't reply, but his manic smile had returned in full force and it said: _Wouldn't you like to know?_

_They shouldn't be working here_, thought Chase, watching both Shen Gong Wu shine with a new vigour in their respective colours. _Under normal circumstances, those Shen Gong Wu should not be functioning._ _We're outside time itself here._

But these were not normal circumstances, not with Dashi and his Super Duper Special Time Rescue Squad from other worlds affecting them from afar. And what on earth was Phantom doing to the Shen Gong Wu? That same strange static electricity... It was powering them. But how? Was the electricity some weird time paradoxey reaction to the Shen Gong Wu? Is that what would happen if he tried to use the Shen Gong Wu, too?

The energies appeared to be so volatile, so unstable, and Chase knew that Dashi had been right: he couldn't use magic now. This dimension was sort of on the outskirts of the realm of reality; on reality's edge. What would happen if Danny Phantom _broke_ Infinity? Were there other realities outside this one? Realities outside realities outside realities, like a Russian doll? Realities that were, in fact, more real than this one?

Would they all disappear into non-existence too?

_It's probably a __good__ thing Phantom did that chi-block move,_ Chase thought wryly. _No chance of me accidentally exploding reality._ _But now I need to figure out another way to stop him. How am I going to get all the way up there? Is it possible to just "fly" there?_

He jumped up as far as he could, which was certainly a great deal higher than a normal jump, but the "fake" gravity pulled him down as if he had been on Earth. He wasn't quite sure how to manipulate it to his advantage.

He noticed movement out of the corner of his eye; Jack had stirred, and was trying to rouse Omi. He took a closer look at them. For the first time he wondered why Jack was in a ghost form like Wuya, but he put that thought to the back of his mind for now.

He turned his head back, and now Dan and both Shen Gong Wu were completely surrounded by a silvery ball of fizzling electricity. Inside the ball, blue and red were slowly becoming purple, and Chase suddenly had the thought that what Phantom was doing, in fact, was trying to open another Time-error and instigate its expansion - throughout all space-time. All worlds and times...

_Dammit!_

Just then, something invisible seemed to be trying to drag the Shen Gong Wu out of Dan's sphere. The ghost frowned, glaring down in Chase's direction, but though Chase matched him glare for glare, he was just as surprised as Phantom was. Then, Chase finally spotted Dashi: he was standing sideways, at right-angles to Dan and everyone else, just above the sphere. He was trying to pull the Shen Gong Wu away with his chi.

Unfortunately, it seemed even Dashi was thwarted. Whenever the Shen Gong Wu touched the edge of the sphere, they bounced back inside.

"Hey, Chase," said a voice, and Chase looked down to see the elf-boy, Link, staring back at him. The old man Oshus was standing behind him, holding his shell-shaped stick. Dojo slithered on the floor beside Oshus.

"We did it!" said Link. "We fixed it, sort of. Everything is nearly okay, but the last hurdle is here, the last part of the jigsaw. Something's stopping the very final 'click'. That's what Dashi said."

"Phantom," said Chase, pointing up. Omi and ghost-Jack joined the group, and now all six heads were looking up.

"Why is he doing that?" said Oshus, shaking his head. "Why does he want to destroy all of existence?"

"Because he's tired of existing," said Chase.

"Or he's just a Phantom Pain In The Ass," said Link. Oshus made a snort-laugh.

Danny himself outright laughed, but it was up for debate whether he'd found Link's remark amusing or whether he was just laughing because he was a psychopathic loon.

"Oh, you think that's funny, do you?" Link snarled, glaring up angrily as Dan continued his maniacal laughter, the debate definitely over. The elf-boy turned his head slightly to the side to look at Dashi, while pointing a finger at Phantom. "Hey, Dashi, when you were describing Phantom, you kinda missed the part where he's a complete psycho."

"I didn't think that part needed explaining," said Dashi, who hadn't taken his own eyes off the ghost.

Link was forced to concede the point. He made a small noise of reluctant acceptance as he whipped out a bow and arrow from his magical bag. He raised the bow, taking aim. Dan settled down into a grin at this, and he sneered down at Link. The arrow flew, and it was a true Robin Hood shot, heading straight for the centre of the sphere. Dashi blinked: the arrow was incinerated by a zap of lightning before it even met the sphere.

"You know," said Dan, while Link growled darkly, "I'm glad you're here, Dashi. I'd really like to know."

"Eh - Dashi?" said Omi, whose brain had finally caught up with his eyes and ears. "The grandmaster?"

"Isn't he the guy who made the Shen Gong Wu?" said Jack, and then his own eyes widened in recognition. "And aren't you _Chase Young_?"

"Yes, yes, yes and _yes_," said Chase, in a tone that clearly indicated he wanted the both of them to be quiet. He wanted to hear Dashi's reply.

"Know what?" said Dashi.

"What - do you - _think_?" Dan asked in a sing-song voice.

Dashi, who was still sideways, now walked around the electric ball, examining the sphere and blocking the odd discharge here and there. "This is a pretty ambitious scheme, even for you," he commented unperturbedly, as if he was talking to an old friend. He shifted himself, floating to the side so that he was the right way up relative to everyone else's position.

"Like it, eh?"

"An eternal loop of torment, huh?"

"I knew you'd see it right away! That's what I like about you: you're smart."

Dashi frowned inwardly, thinking: _That's because the last time we met, you read my mind. Now __you've__ got that time stream knowledge too._

"Remaking reality into your own twisted illusion?" he said out loud, outwardly calm and laid-back. "Force everyone, in every world, in every time, to relive their own worst nightmare again, and again, and again?"

_What?_ thought Chase. He _didn't_ want to destroy it all? But this was far, far worse. A redesign of reality into everyone's own personal hell, just so that Phantom could get his twisted jollies.

_Let's see what you've got, Dashi_.

"Of course," said Dan. Dashi saw, beyond the static energy, Dan's eyes growing hard, and cold. "Then everyone will know what it feels like to lose everything, to carry pain and anguish around for all eternity, to experience despair _every single day of their life_."

Despite himself, Link gaped. This was what happened, then, when the hero of the story _didn't_ save the day. This is what happened when you had lost everything, and had nothing left to lose. You went totally bananas. He fervently hoped it wouldn't ever happen to him.

"He can do that?" said Omi, also gaping. To see Raimundo, and Kimiko, and Clay die over and over and over again, each death more hideous and gruesome than the last... he couldn't imagine anything worse.

"This place is linked to all times, all places, all worlds," said Oshus gravely, while Jack added, "Wouldn't surprise me."

"Can't let it happen, I'm afraid," said Dashi cheerfully.

"And what makes you think you have a choice? You're too late. You can't get through this _delightful_ little shield I've made. No one can."

"That's quite the bold statement, my friend. Shall I put it to the test?"

"_Be my guest_."

Dashi nodded, smiled, and then breathed out deeply, taking a giant stomp of a step forwards. A shield appeared around him, a greyish bubble that seemed to repel the lightning whenever it came near, and two giant wooden rectangles appeared at either side of Danny's electro-sphere.

"What's he doing...?" Oshus wondered.

Chase knew. He had only ever seen Dashi try this one once, on a much smaller scale, with a spirit called Sabeeny. Dashi was going to seal Phantom away inside the wooden rectangles, sacrificing the Sands of Time and Shard of Lightning in the process. But would it be enough?

Phantom was not going to give up without a fight, and, seeing the danger, shot a powerful green, curling shockwave that dissipated Dashi's shield; and without even a moment's pause, he immediately followed up with a crackling bolt of electricity, a lightning strike discharged from the sphere. Dashi countered with lightning from his own hands, all the while still concentrating on enclosing the ghost within.

As the two rectangles started to close in, and draw the lightning sphere within themselves, Phantom snarled, and threw a tremendous surge of power across. For a moment, Dashi resisted -

- and in that moment Chase realised something was horribly wrong. _He's __tired__... His chi is drained, his physical body has reached its limit... He's not going to be able to sustain that -_

- then his eyes widened as he was overwhelmed, and he cried out as the lightning arced through his body. The two wooden blocks instantly evaporated, but Dan still did not stop his attack, and everyone else winced at the sound of Dashi's pained screams, except Chase, who growled in helpless frustration instead.

The last thought Dashi had before losing consciousness was that Phantom had become more powerful since they had last met... He was sent down, falling fast; for a moment, Chase thought he would just keep going and going and going - because there wasn't really any gravity here - but he crashed into an invisible floor, the same one that everyone standing on.

"No!" said Oshus.

"Grandmaster!" said Omi.

Everyone rushed as fast as they could towards Dashi's prone body, on the fake ground. His eyes were closed and his robes were smoking; had Dashi had hair, it probably would have been standing on end.

"You idiot!" Chase roared, bending down and shaking the lifeless Dashi by the shoulders. "Wake up! He's going to change all of reality!" The amount of emotion he was showing was surprising him, but at this point he didn't really care. He hated the feeling of powerlessness he was experiencing right now, and lashing out at Dashi was the only way he could express it. "How dare you fall unconscious!"

_Why did you hide the fact that you were exhausted, you fool?_

"Oh, Dashi..." said Dojo sadly.

"Um," said Jack, floating timidly behind Chase.

"What?" Chase snapped, whirling round to face Jack.

Jack whimpered. "Um, let me see if I can reach him. Like, in his mind."

Chase nodded. Jack ducked into Dashi's chest and entered his body, and the group waited, and after a couple of minutes he flew back out.

"No reply..." he said sadly.

The white world around them began to fizzle, and it was becoming increasingly hot. Flashes of lightning struck here and there, at odd angles and in any direction.

"Aargh, I don't do so well in lightning storms..." said Dojo, his head jerking this way and that to follow all the lightning strikes.

"Nearly there!" Dan crowed tauntingly. "Fun times for everyone!"

"Could you levitate me?" Omi asked suddenly. The only Shen Gong Wu he had were the Fist of Tebigong and the Orb of Tornami, but perhaps that was all he needed. "Perhaps you could turn me intangible again."

"That isn't going to work," said Jack, correctly guessing Omi's plan. With all the electricity flying around, the Shen Gong Wu seemed to be working here this time. But...

"He used that electric energy and nearly succeeded in pulling me out of you, remember? We're just both going to get zapped like Dashi before you get a chance to freeze and smash him."

"Somehow I don't think the Phantom Sword is going to work either," said Oshus, in response to Link's equally determined expression. "Not against _this_ Phantom."

"So what are we supposed to do?" snapped Link. "Just sit here and wait while he electrifies all of existence?"

"Sounds like a plan to me!" said Dan brightly.

"Shut up!" Link growled, pointing an angry finger up at the air. "No one's talking to you!"

"What are we going to do? What are we going to do? _What are we going to do_?"

"_Quiet_, Dojo! Let me think," said Chase. He took a deep breath and shut his eyes. He could feel his power slowly returning, but what could he do?

_What would Dashi do? He'd have a plan. But what would he do when everything else has failed?_

"Wait a minute," said Oshus quietly. "Try to keep your voices down, but... up there. Don't all look at once, but there's a little Time-error where Dashi was standing."

Trying to discretely look upwards in the same direction proved tricky, but Oshus was right. It was a tiny dot compared to Dan's large sphere, but it was there. And Chase could sense a tiny bit of Dashi's chi, there, too. He must have secretly placed it there before he had been zapped with his remaining strength: his final trump card.

_We can trap him inside_, thought Chase. _So that was your plan...!_

"I can't quite reach it," said Link, still quietly, waving his sword very slowly. "I can feel it, though."

"Maybe..." said Chase. "If I give it a little nudge, a little prod." Like he'd done before, with Dan's consciousness...

As one, Link aimed the Phantom Sword, Chase felt for the Time-error's odd energy, and they both pulled. The Time-error bulged... and the lightning around them intensified. Chase hurriedly threw up a shield around the group, unsure of whether it would work against the disruptive lightning, but it seemed to do the trick, mainly because he'd taken a cue from Dashi and added his elemental chi to the mix.

But then_ everything_ turned to purple - the lightning, and the blank expanse - even all those inside Chase's shield took on a purple shade. Dan laughed triumphantly; even Chase's shield was not enough to save them.

"Dashi told you not to use magic!" said Oshus. "And -" POK! "- I told _you_ not to use the Phantom Sword!"

"OW!" Link cried. "You old coot! What's wrong with you?"

"What's wrong with me? _What's wrong with me?_ I'll tell you what's wrong with me! My stick is purple. My shirt is purple. My _beard_ is purple. My skin? Purple! I - am - PURPLE! That's what's bloody wrong with me!

"And _what's this_?" the old man added in the same angry tone, holding up his left arm, which was turning translucent. "I'm see-through! Disappearing!"

"So I should have just let us all fry to death, should I?" Chase snapped sarcastically, glaring at Oshus, as Link was doing, though they were all fading away.

"Because your idea totally worked," said Jack, equally as sarcastic, in a rare moment of Chase Young criticism. Purple Omi and Purple Dojo kept silent, not wanting to be in the middle of all this purple arguing.

"Yes, I rather think you've made things worse!" said Oshus. If they were slowly being purpled into a new type of Infinity here, one could only imagine what was happening to the worlds outside Infinity - or, rather, inside.

"Oh, oh," said Dojo, looking up. "What's this?"

"What is it _now_?" said Chase.

The Time-error expanded in size, and then bulged again, tensing like a balloon about to release all its air. Everyone watched as a man with a tall black hat, and a boy in a blue school uniform popped out, both incredibly confused, but also both incredibly not purple.

_Dashi's chi_, thought Chase. _Dashi's chi brought them here. But how? How did he anchor it to them?_

"W-what's going on?" said Professor Layton, while Luke hid behind him. "What _is_ this place?"

"You're just in time," said Phantom quietly, air fizzling with reality-changing power. "How would you like to die? All at once or piece by piece?"

The professor started, gaping at the look of murderous hatred being directed at him from inside the sphere, but something in his pocket shimmered, and he held the object out in his palm in surprise... and Chase recognised it.

A wooden puzzle box.

It shot out a lilac gas, which - as it had done with Wuya so many years ago - completely ignored the electricity. The gas floated through the sphere's boundaries, before solidifying and taking the form of a sticky net. Now ensnared, Dan roared with fury, struggling and hissing like a wild animal, but the gas continued its pull, and he was forced inside the puzzle box, which snapped shut.

_The puzzle box was the anchor, _thought Chase._ And the electricity was a magnet..._

And just like that, the sphere vanished, and the Sands of Time and Shard of Lightning fell uselessly by the professor's feet, all traces of electricity now gone. Infinity was the colour white again.

"W-what?" stammered Layton, completely bewildered. He was shaking a little. "What madness is this?"

"Awesome!" said a voice from down below. "You just saved all of reality!" There was cheering accompanying this, and both man and boy stared.

"I... must be dreaming," said Layton.

"Me too," said Luke.


	15. Chapter 14: A Griffin's Courage

**Elysian Fields** - in ancient Greek mythology, a beautiful paradise where heroes and other righteous folks ended up after they died, sort of a Greek version of heaven.

* * *

**Chapter 14: A Griffin's Courage**

* * *

"Gosh," said Luke.

"This is... incredible," said Layton.

Down below, the larger group stared up at Layton and Luke, and up above, Layton and Luke stared back. It was really rather odd; it looked as though Layton and Luke were standing at the top of an invisible cliff.

"Does anyone know how to get up there?" said Link finally. He had sheathed his sword.

"I do," said Jack, smirking, and he floated up to the higher level.

"Yeah, that's real bloody useful," snapped Link, still a bit high-strung from all the purple excitement. If he never saw that colour again, it would be too soon.

On the higher level Layton frowned at Jack, placing a protective arm in front of Luke. "A ghost?"

"Hey, hey, I'm on your side, Mr. Top Hat guy. You sealed Phantom away. You've got Dashi's puzzle box there."

Layton's expression didn't change, still staying on the side of caution. "You're a friend of Mr. Dashi?"

Jack nodded, but Layton didn't seem to be buying it.

"I don't think those two really know what's going on," said Oshus quietly, pulling on the end of his beard.

"I could fly us up there," Dojo began, when Omi and Link both beamed. Dashi was coming round.

"Ow..." he said, leaning back on both hands as he sat up, and there were numerous cheers - except from Chase, who kept a stony face. "That was a pretty dumb thing to do. Still, it all worked out, I see?"

Chase narrowed his eyes. Of all the insufferable, irritating, egocentric, impossible things to do...! Why didn't he just tell everybody he was going to use a puzzle box?

_Because he's Dashi,_ he thought. _He never says things up front._

Knowing this didn't make it any less infuriating. To think - he'd actually been just the tiniest bit worried about Dashi, when he'd crashed on Infinity's floor like that. What a waste of time.

Dashi stretched his arms and legs, making pained noises, and then slowly propped himself up; but when he started walking it was as if he hadn't been electrocuted at all. He walked up an invisible stairwell which curled round to meet Layton's invisible cliff.

"How... did he do that?" said Omi.

"Magic," said Chase in a dull, unconcerned voice, though he could feel that Dashi's chi was still completely drained, despite appearances to the contrary. He was just hiding it again. When pressed for what kind of magic, Chase replied, "The Dashi kind."

"Mr. Dashi!" Layton said, while the others made their way up the Dashi stairs. "My word!"

"Fancy seeing you here!" said Luke.

Omi picked up the Sands of Time, and Jack hovered the Shard of Lightning. Once again, both Shen Gong Wu were duller than usual, as if something had drained the colour out of them.

Layton stared down at Dojo, with an expression that was somewhere in between curious and incredulous.

"Hello, there," said Dojo. "We weren't introduced before, but I'm Dashi's friend Dojo. You remember, the one you offered a cup of tea to?"

"But... You're..."

"A dragon. You noticed, eh?"

"But that's impossible..."

"Impossible? I'm pretty sure I exist, thank you very much!" said Dojo, pretending to be more offended than he really was. "I can fly, too!" He transformed into his larger size, which frightened the life out of both of Luke and Layton, and also took Link and Oshus by surprise. Chase still said nothing, choosing to remain in angry silence.

"A-a dragon? M-my goodness," Layton breathed. "This _must_ be a dream."

"Dojo, what did you go and do that for?" Dashi said crossly. Here was a time when Dojo's magical mouth was bigger than his magical sense. "You're freaking the poor guy out."

"And why on earth _didn't_ you do that before?" snapped Link, always quick to point out someone's flaws. "You could have flown me up to where Phantom was!"

"And get zapped by the electricity? No thanks, me and lightning don't get along." He shrank back to his smaller size. "I'm just the comic relief sidekick. Dashi does all the crazy heroics."

The professor was still staring at Dojo in shocked disbelief. Luke, on the other hand, was taking things much better, and it probably had much to do with the fact that he was still an eleven-year-old kid. His mind was telling him that it was sort kind of trick, an optical illusion, a dragon of animatronics, but his instinct and his experience with animals was telling him that it was all real.

After asking for permission, he gently traced down the middle of Dojo's belly, who laughed as if being tickled. There was no compartment to remove gears, as there should have been if the dragon really was a robot. Seamless. The skin was scaled like a lizard, and warm and moving, like a living, breathing animal.

"Professor," he said, hoping that if he kept a calm voice, he'd be able to convince his scientifically-minded mentor that what he was seeing was real. It would incredibly difficult, but there was one thing that Luke had never understood, and it was why his _own_ ability didn't ever bother Layton. Humans shouldn't be able to talk to animals, but Layton knew that it was no trick. He had never ridiculed or belittled Luke, or accused him of making it all up; somehow he had just believed it. Now Luke had to elicit that very same blind faith from Layton, even if he didn't fully understand why the professor had ever shown it to him in the first place.

"You _know_ I can talk to animals, right?"

"Yes, Luke, but..."

"And you've never _once_ thought that was odd?"

Now Layton looked at Luke. "But that's-"

"Different? How?"

"Because I've seen you do it, Luke."

"Yeah, and you just accepted it, no questions asked. And now you've seen this dragon, right before your eyes. You don't have to know all the answers. You don't have to take something apart to know that it works. Sometimes you have to just believe that it does."

"Please don't be afraid," said Oshus. "We're all from different worlds to your own, so dragons probably don't exist in your world. Different universes, if you prefer."

"Parallel universes," said Layton thoughtfully. "I suppose that makes sense..."

"You believe in _me_, right?" said Luke.

That seemed to seal the deal, at least for the moment. "Yes, of course I do."

Dashi faced Layton, and he actually looked ashamed. "I'm really sorry, but, under the circumstances, I'll have to take back the box I gave you."

"Uh, yes. Yes, of course." Layton handed the box to Dashi, only too glad to be rid of it.

"I think the Elysian Box has met its match," said Luke quietly. "Or maybe it was the Elysian Box all along?"

"The Elysian Fields..." said Layton, looking ever so slightly afraid, though the fear was just beneath the surface, mostly obscured by confusion, and partly obscured by curiosity. "Dare I ask what is happening here?" Because the other possibility was that he was...

"Don't worry, you're not dead," said Dashi. "Bit too plain to be paradise here."

"This is more like a world between the worlds," Oshus said. "Between realities, in fact."

"But that monstrous demon..." said Layton, trailing off, thoughts going in a thousand directions at once. The fizzling lightning, the cold voice, those red eyes... it all felt so real.

"You stopped him," said Dashi, smiling kindly. "And you saved us all. I'm sorry I had to drag you both here like that... Thank you."

"Forgive me," said Layton, "but I still feel as though I am at a disadvantage. Who _are_ you?"

"I'm Dashi, and I created the puzzle box. I didn't lie about that. This is Link and Oshus - " Link waved and Oshus nodded "- Chase Young, another acquaintance - " Chase glared coolly " - and, uh..."

"Omi," said Omi, bowing respectfully.

"Jack Spicer, evil boy genius!" said Jack, folding his ghost arms in a proud _I may be dead but that doesn't mean I can't be evil_ way.

"You are not even remotely evil," Chase said, temporarily breaking his angry silence, "so don't go pretending that you are."

"What are you talking about? We've never even met! I am _very_ evil! I am the epitome of evil! I built the Time-bot! How's that for evil?"

"But that is what caused all the trouble in the first place," Omi reminded him.

"Exactly!"

"What's a Time-bot?" Dashi asked.

"My heinously evil time machine robot. Patent pending."

"Time machine robot?" said Layton with sudden interest, apparently because the conversation was back in the realm of science again.

"Yep," said Jack. "Travels through time."

"Now _that's_ impossible," said Dojo, folding his own arms stubbornly. As a much younger Dojo, he didn't believe that humanity could make that much progress in fifteen hundred years, even though Dashi had sometimes come up with futuristic designs for some of the Shen Gong Wu by using the Crystal Glasses.

"Why?" said Jack and Layton at the same time, with Jack having an indignant expression, and Layton carrying an amused one.

"Well - just because! You can't just _build_ a machine to gather up the time streams. It'd be too complicated to set up, you'd need a constant supply of energy for starters. Easy with magic, but impossible without. That's what you told me, Dashi."

"Yeah, I suppose," said Dashi doubtfully, "but it might be different for other worlds. And who knows what our future world will be like?"

"Well _I_ did it," said Jack triumphantly. "The fact that we're all here is proof!"

"It's possible," added Layton, and suddenly, for him, the alternate universes idea didn't seem so far-fetched. "Someone was... working on a time machine, where I come from."

"There you go!" said Jack.

"But..." said Dojo. "That's..."

"_Now_ who's being disbelieving?" said Link, smirking.

"Point," said Dojo, and he looked at Layton. "Tell you what: if you believe in magic, I'll believe in human technology."

Layton chuckled, and bent down to shake Dojo's hand. "It's a deal."

"Are those the magical objects you told us about?" Oshus asked Dashi, pointing to the hourglass in Omi's hand.

Dashi nodded, and Omi said, "This is the Sands of Time."

"May I have a look?" Layton asked, much more like his pleasantly reserved self. At this point it was best to just go with the flow and, as such, he was not going to ignore the opportunity to study these magnificent looking artefacts.

"Um..." said Omi, glancing at the grandmaster. The last thing he wanted was for this professor person to go teleporting throughout time periods with an out-of-control Shen Gong Wu.

"It's fine," said Dashi, "they don't have any power any more. They only work in 'normal' time. Normal time doesn't operate here. Well, there _is_ a timeline, of sorts, here, but it runs at right angles to normal time."

"Right-angled time," said Layton, taking the hourglass and looking at it closely, turning it round and watching the red sand grains fall. "How extraordinary...!"

"So... Omi. Are you from the future, too?" Dashi asked.

"Yes, grandmaster," said Omi. "I am from the Xiaolin temple, fifteen hundred years from your present." There was something about the way Omi had said Xiaolin temple; he seemed... sad. Had something happened to the temple inside the loop?

"Same timeframe as Chase, then," said Dashi. "But you were trapped inside the loop, right?"

"Yes..." said Omi, still with the same wistful tone.

"Don't worry," said Dashi, putting a reassuring arm on Omi's shoulder, "it'll be fine. You'll see." Omi perked up at this, giving him a big smile. Obviously his reputation had lasted fifteen hundred years. The guy who could do anything.

_Right..._

Suddenly, Layton looked up, catching Dashi by surprise. "Did you create this as well?"

"Uh... Yeah, I guess I did."

"You're very talented, to create all these objects."

"Uh, thanks," he said. _You're a smart one, too_, he thought to himself. _And quit pouting, Chase._

"As a magical object, I suppose it freezes time, then?" said Layton.

"No, that would be this one," said Jack, pointing to the large blue orb he was levitating with his ghost powers. "The one you've got lets you time travel."

"Like a magical time machine," said Layton, handing the Sands of Time back to Omi.

"You could do stuff like meeting an older version of yourself," said Link. "Which I've already done," he added thoughtfully.

"I wonder what a future version of me would look like?" Luke said.

Finally, Chase could take it no longer.

"You knew!" he snarled, right up in Dashi's face, startling both Luke and the professor. All eyes were now on Chase and Dashi.

"You knew this would happen! You knew those two would appear at just the right time with the puzzle box. You planned it all, you irritating little know-it-all!"

"Didn't know you cared, Chase," said Dashi calmly.

"I'm with Chase," said Link, tilting his head slightly, a little annoyed. "Why didn't you just tell us your plan?"

"I needed it to be a surprise, otherwise he would have seen the puzzle box coming. I needed something... unexpected. And I needed you to stall him, too. Besides, I didn't _have_ a plan for dealing with Phantom until the last minute."

It was the last sentence which made Chase deflate like a balloon, and he sighed. "So very like you," he conceded. It was just like Dashi to pull something out at the last possible moment - that was what made him so difficult to deal with. Chase had a thought, then: maybe it was time _he_ started learning how to manipulate time streams. At the very least, if something like this ever happened again, he wouldn't have to deal with Dashi's foolishness. Plus, it would be nice to be able to tick off the "control over time" box on the list of evil powers. Omi wouldn't stand a chance.

"Yo, yo!" someone called, and everyone looked in the direction of the voice. It was a black-haired boy, with a grey dog. "Professor Puzzle-Hat! Check it!"

"Who is that?" Omi asked, watching the boy and his dog come closer to the group. The boy was doing a kind of strut to a rap, which reminded him of his New Yorker friend, Jermaine, though instead of wearing any _bling-blinging_, the boy was carrying a large egg.

"Puzzle-Hat?" said Luke indignantly, bristling at the nickname. He was sorely tempted to shoot back a nickname of his own. _Magpie-boy._

"I don't know him," said Dashi. "Nothing to do with me."

"That makes a change," said Chase.

"I feel like _I've_ seen him somewhere..." said Dojo. "He smells familiar."

"_Smells?_" said Link.

"Luke and I met him in Folsense," said Layton.

"I've solved your puzzle!" said Jake, with a proud look akin to smugness. Unlike Dashi, Jake _was_ one to brag.

"Oh, really, now?" said Layton, allowing himself a small smile.

"Yeah! See, you put three coins on one side, and three on the other side. If it's equal, you know the fake's not there, so you put those six to one side. Then you have three left, so you put one on one side and one on the other, and if _those_ are equal..."

"What is this?" Link said to Oshus, as Omi, Jack, Dashi and Chase watched Jake explain how he'd come to the answer.

"I don't know. Maybe he gave the boy some kind of test? Didn't you have to solve some riddles while you were out questing?"

"Well, yeah..." Link admitted. "But that was to save the world from Ganondorf. This just looks like a maths teacher being zealous with maths homework. I mean, look at this: he's so strict with his assignments that his students actually have to come all the way to Infinity to give him the answer."

"That's not true," said Luke, as stubborn as ever in his defence of the professor. "Actually, it _kinda_ is," he added, retracting his statement because he often did visit the professor just to give the answer to a problem, "but he's not a maths teacher. He only gives out puzzles now and then to keep people on their toes. But he's the best at solving puzzles. That's how he opened Dashi's puzzle box."

"Maybe he can give me a tip or three, then," Link said, being serious for once. "The sliding block puzzles are the worst."

Jake finished giving his answer. Layton said, "Well done," nodding in approval, and Jake punched the air with one fist.

"Whoop! And the crowd goes wild for the NYC kid! Yeah!"

"Not bad," said Luke, folding his arms with a haughty smirk. "But that was an easy one! Wait till you get a real mind-boggler."

"Looking forward to it," said Jake, returning the smirk with one of his own. "But," he added more seriously, turning to look at everyone else, "why are you all standing round here for? What happened to all the purple? Where's Phantom?"

"You're a bit _late_," said Link, crossing his arms a little irritably. "We already beat Phantom and fixed all the distortions."

"What?" exclaimed Jake, before he could stop himself. "I missed the battle? But - I wanted to beat the bad guy! We even went in the Time-error and everything!"

"_What?_" said Link, equally as surprised. The idea that someone actually _wanted_ to fight an enemy like Phantom was one that caused his brain to crash. It didn't compute. "Are you completely off your rocker? You should be glad you weren't here, this 'bad guy' was completely nuts. Totally psycho. It took all of us to fight him."

"Yeah, he killed _me_," said Jack sadly, "that's why I'm a ghost."

"Woah," said Jake, suddenly relieved that he'd missed all the action. "Uh, never mind then."

Fu Dog sighed inwardly. _So much for my twenty bucks._

Link pointed at Dashi. "But, we trapped him inside that magic puzzle box in the end. Actually, it was the good professor here who trapped him."

The professor nodded, and tipped his hat.

"He did?" said Jake, unable to hide his astonishment. Layton certainly didn't seem the kind of person who would readily fight using magic. Perhaps there _was_ more to him than met the eye.

"I don't really know what we're supposed to be doing next," Link continued. "Go home, I s'pose. Why _are_ we still here?"

In answer to his question, a dot of light appeared, the colours pink and blue swirling round, and gradually growing larger until it was the size of a two-floor building. Eleven heads stared at the creatures that emerged - the blue and pink dinosaurs, which towered over everyone there.

And then, from behind, a light blue ghost in a purple hooded cape hovered a little way from them, holding a staff as if it were a scythe. He was some kind of watch fanatic, because he wore them all the way down his arms. The staff had a clock, too. He even had a clock inside his chest, and to Jack and Omi it was as if he were a ghost version of Jack's Time-bot.

"My word," said Layton, again.

"Heh," said Dashi, to the group. "You think I'm bad, with not letting anyone in on any secrets? Wait till you see this guy." He gestured to the Time-ghost, who bowed his head slightly in acknowledgement, smirking ever so slightly.

"Hello, Clockwork," said Dashi. "Am I seeing the missing link?"

"Maybe," said Clockwork.

"The reason Dojo and Chase still exist, despite being paradoxes?"

"Perhaps," said Clockwork.

"The one who guided me across worlds, until I found Chase?"

"Possibly," said Clockwork.

"The ghost who gathered all the other time guardians together for the final push to save reality?"

"Probably," said Clockwork.

Chase made a noise that was somewhere in between a growl and a sigh. So this ghost had orchestrated the whole rescue of reality, had he? And, presumably, he had also been the one to tell the dinosaurs to find Chase and Dashi and help them figure out what to do... Here was someone who could potentially be even more annoyingly omniscient than Dashi, by Dashi's own admission. This did not bode well for Chase's strained temper.

"Why are you here?" asked Oshus, himself eyeing the new ghost suspiciously. He knew a fellow time stream wielder when he saw one, and this one was a seasoned pro, by the look of things. "Why now?"

Clockwork pointed his staff at Dashi, who blinked in surprise.

"The puzzle box?" he asked. "But why?"

"Danny Phantom is my responsibility," Clockwork replied simply.

Jake shifted. "Danny Phantom being...?"

"The crazy ghost inside the box," said Oshus.

"Right, right..." said Jake. "Our bad guy."

"Now you wait just a bleeding minute!" Link snapped, glaring at Clockwork. "We all worked hard to trap that ghost inside! What could _you_ possibly want with him, Mr. Pops-Up-At-The-End-To-Claim-All-The-Credit?"

"He's from my timeline - my time paradox. Like I said, my responsibility."

"_Wait a minute_," said Dashi, too, and Chase was pleased to see Dashi get a bit annoyed, but only a little. There was a larger part of him that was also annoyed, if only because it felt like this ghost had been using them to do a job that he should have done himself. If Phantom was his responsibility, where had he been all this time?

"You _knew_ about Danny?" asked Dashi. "You created his time paradox?"

"I imprisoned him here," Clockwork said, by way of reply. Dashi stared hard at him, but he didn't say anything further, and Dashi knew that that was all he'd get out of him on the subject.

Everyone, excluding Dashi and especially Jack, was startled when Clockwork suddenly transformed into an older version of himself, turning wrinkly and growing a long, gray beard. The now old blue ghost continued speaking as if becoming elderly in the blink of an eye was a perfectly normal thing to do.

"But, I must admit, I had no idea you'd encountered Phantom before," he said, eyebrow raised.

"It was a little while after we first met," said Dashi, now looking more annoyed with himself. "I, er, broke our universe by accident and ended up here by mistake. I'm afraid I didn't see the connection between you two."

"I wish I had been there to help you," said the old Clockwork, sounding ever so slightly sympathetic. "But I'm no longer able to see his actions, since he exists outside time. Even though he was trapped within the thermos, his powers only continued to increase, particularly his powers of illusion. I didn't even realise he'd corrupted the invisible hall and made it his own, and I didn't see him affecting that tear in space-time until it was too late. But I _did_ think you'd pull through, and you performed splendidly."

"So _you_ knew what was going to happen in the end as well?" said Chase, not happy about having his strings pulled by this otherworldly puppeteer.

"No, I didn't," said Clockwork patiently, as if he was used to explaining to people, albeit people that he thought were children. "I also had to improvise." He sighed, suddenly changing into a younger child version of himself, so small that his staff was longer than he was.

"I couldn't affect the loop," he continued, and he still had an adult's voice despite having a child's appearance. "I wanted to stop Phantom's escape from here, in order to break the cycle, but I was stuck on the outside."

Chase made a small sighing growl of a noise. If only he'd been able to smash through the red jelly barrier outside that white door, he would have been able to stop the loop, too.

"But Dashi, the one person who could help, was in the past..." said Clockwork.

"He was outside the loop without being affected by it," finished Chase, somewhat reluctantly. "Not a time paradox."

"I knew the Time-error was linked to your world." Clockwork pointed to the blue dinosaur with his clock-staff. "It was Dialga's idea to save you, Chase. Dialga thought it might give Dashi some incentive to take things seriously."

Dashi laughed. Chase wasn't sure whether to glare at Dashi or frown up at the blue dinosaur, Dialga, so he did nothing.

"And you activated the purple pieces," said Dashi, still smiling.

"I managed to activate the first piece, to get you out of the collapsed universe and to where Dojo was, in a pocket of time. Then Palkia, here," Clockwork gestured to the pink dinosaur on his right, "took over, waiting until you gathered enough of those shards to figure out what they could be. I did what I could to prepare the other Time Masters, from all the other worlds - as many as I could find - so that when that moment came, when you, or someone else, tried to restore everything, we were ready. And then we waited. I had to leave everything else in your hands. As it turned out, you _were_ already the perfect person for the job. You were the only one who could restore the Shen Gong Wu to their original state, after all. And it all worked out in the end."

"But I'm dead!" Jack wailed. "How can that be fair?"

"One could say that death is an improvement over your previous state," said Chase coldly, temper severely frayed.

"Ah, don't listen to him, he's a sourpuss," said Dashi, who was satisfied with Clockwork's explanation and had reverted to his usual carefree mood. "I wouldn't worry about it if I were you."

"You do have a Shen Gong Wu that can revive me, right?"

"Eh? Where'd you get that idea? No, I don't. But it _has_ all worked out. Trust me." Dashi winked, giving the impression that there was just one final thing he wasn't telling them.

And then Dashi noticed the look that Omi was giving him.

"What's wrong, kid?"

Omi became a little crestfallen again. Like Jack, he had been hoping the grandmaster would be able to help him out. As things stood, Clay, Kimiko, and Raimundo were all still dead. "Do you not remember me? You gave me another puzzle box to defeat Wuya!"

Dashi put a hand on his chin thoughtfully. "Did I, now?"

"It has not happened to you yet," said Chase, who was in turn receiving a similar look of hero-worship from Spicer and had to restrain himself from blasting the idiot away, even if he was just a ghost.

"So... you're saying Wuya got out of the puzzle box, fifteen hundred years in the future?" said Dashi.

"I am afraid so, Grandmaster," said Omi.

"Well, it doesn't matter," Dashi said, shrugging. "As soon as we leave here, we're going to forget all this."

"What?" said Luke. He whirled his head round towards Dashi in disappointment. He had been rather enjoying this bizarre world of ghosts, dragons, dinosaurs and magic.

"Clockwork and his timeline are immune, because Phantom's time paradox is from that timeline and already existed before everything happened. And because he imprisoned Phantom here, in Infinity - and we did, too - Phantom will just continue being inside the box. Infinity runs on its own time. And maybe the dinosaurs are exempt too, they live in their own dimensions."

Clockwork, now an adult again, nodded.

"But the rest of us... Our timelines have all gone back to normal, so our memories will be reset as soon as we leave here. It'll be as if none of this ever happened."

"How convenient," said Chase. He now knew why, much earlier, Dashi had been so sure that he wouldn't change the timeline, and why just now he had told Jack not to worry about being dead. It also completely evaporated any plans to learn time-stream wielding.

"That's not what you did last time," he said. "Last time when the universe broke, you left things as they were. You must have done, otherwise we wouldn't have been able to remember it happening. I wouldn't have remembered being in Infinity before."

"Yes, but last time, even though Dojo and I were sent across time _and_ space, it was still only our world was affected, not everyone else's. This time I had to snap everything back to the way it was, otherwise I couldn't break the cycle."

"That's... not fair," said Link. "I don't want to forget this, otherwise what's the point?"

"I do!" said Jack. "I don't want to be dead!"

"Yes, there are some things I wish to forget also," said Omi, now extremely relieved.

"Woah, woah, woah," said Jake. "Time out! Do you not realise what I've had to go through to save this egg?" He counted off on his fingers. "I've had to lure a giant yellow bird away from its nest by pretending to _be_ a giant yellow bird; chase after two white lab mice trying to take over the world; dodge my way through a factory full of saws and flamethrowers and robots; fight some ancient demon for twelve Talismans of the Chinese Zodiac; weigh a whole bunch of eggs and solve _your_ math question at the same time; and you're telling me I have to do it all over again?"

"Not all of it," said Dashi. "Just any part that took place in your world, before the space-time distortions all started."

"Would I be correct in assuming that the Griffin's Egg is, in fact, a griffin's _egg_?" said Layton, who was a right Sherlock Holmes when it came to remembering details.

"Griffin!" said Dojo, suddenly remembering where he'd smelled the familiar scent. "That's where I saw you! You're a dragon, like me!"

"Uh... what?" said Jake, now regretting saying anything at all. "I don't know what you're talking about."

Chase snapped his fingers, and Jake involuntarily transformed into his red dragon form. Chase had known Jake was a dragon all along; he could sense a dragon like this one no matter what form they took.

"Goodness!" said Layton.

"You sure kept that one quiet!" said Luke.

"Well, well," said Oshus.

"Since the jig is up," said Fu Dog, "no point in _me_ keeping quiet any more. Ta-da!"

"And the Shar Pei talks! My, this day is turning out to be full of surprises," said Layton.

_But that means this really __is__ all real_, thought Luke. _And we're all going to forget it, just like that..._

There was a cracking noise, and Jake blinked, gently placing the griffin egg on the ground. The egg hatched, and a little griffin's head popped out. It had the golden fur of a lion, with the brown feathers of an eagle, but it didn't look particularly majestic. It was kind of scrawny-looking instead, with scraggly feathers, and slightly tangled fur. It had a piece of eggshell still on its head.

It squeaked, and Luke tilted his head in concentration. "I think... yeah, he's hungry."

"You know it's a he?" said Fu Dog. Even though he dealt with magical creatures on a day-to-day basis, he couldn't tell a griffin's gender just like that. Not without looking in the obvious place.

"Squeak! Squeak, squeak!"

"Yup. And he wants to know where this is, and if there's any food."

Luke received a few stares, ranging from amused (from the professor) to various states of bemused (from everyone else).

"It's an antiquated form of Eagle," he said, shrugging.

"Oh, that's right, you can talk to animals," said Jake, again impressed with the way that these two seemingly non-magical people were nonetheless full of surprises themselves. He bent down on all fours, trying to coax the griffin into his care, and yelled as its beak snapped shut on his dragon finger. Spicer and Link both snickered. Luke said something in Eagle, though, and the griffin let go, making a purring noise and rubbing its head like a cat against Jake's arm.

"What did you say to it?" asked Omi.

"That he was gonna take it to its mother." Luke raised an eyebrow at Jake. "That _is_ what you were going to do, wasn't it?"

"Yeah," said Jake, smiling and giving Luke a dragon's thumb-up. "Thanks!" He transformed back, feeling more comfortable in his human form here, and picked up the griffin as if it was a cat.

"Glad to be of assistance," said Luke, smiling back. Maybe this magpie-kid wasn't so bad after all.

"What about you?" said Chase to Layton. "Not hiding any worlds inside that hat, are you?"

"I can assure you, Mr. Young, my hat is anything but magical."

"Wanna swap hats?" said Link, holding out his green sock of a hat hopefully. "I hate my hat..."

POK!

"No! That's the Hero's hat! Don't forget, you still have to beat Bellum and restore my powers!" Oshus said. "That's your responsibility, not the professor's! Stop shirking it!"

Link clutched his head in both hands. "Ow, ow, OW! Don't worry, couldn't possibly forget about that. Bellum's going down."

"You know," said Fu Dog, "if you guys really want to remember this, there is a way."

"Oh?" said Oshus.

"Really?" said Dashi, raising an eyebrow. This was news to him.

Fu Dog walked over to where the griffin had hatched and picked up one of the small brown feathers, holding it up in a paw. The top edge of it twinkled.

"Griffin feathers. People always make the mistake of thinking that they bestow physical strength, but it's actually an inner strength. The bold courage of a lion and the far-sighted wisdom of an eagle manifests itself as the ability to draw upon an inner resolve: the ability to remember. You won't remember it consciously, it just keeps the memory in a tiny, tidy place in your mind. The memory will resurface when it needs to."

"A memory that only works when it needs to?" said Layton.

"Like one of Dashi's puzzle boxes," said Chase, who couldn't think of a reason why the memory of these events would come back unless Phantom did, and that still meant no time-stream wielding for him if Clockwork did his job properly this time.

Dashi himself frowned. "I'd still rather forget everything completely." He wanted to forget, because he knew that with his knowledge he would try to change his own Chase's future, and he couldn't allow himself to do that.

Fu Dog stared up at Dashi, and then pointed at the box in Clockwork's hand. "What are you going to do if your crazy time paradox phantom breaks out of that box? If it took all of you to get him in there, don't you think it's better if you remember how you did it?"

"I agree," said the Time-ghost. "I myself have learned something from all this, and it's that Phantom must be kept under continual watch. I have the perfect person for the job. I think it would be unwise for the rest of you to just discard the experience, but ultimately it's still your choice. What have _you_ all learned? Is that knowledge worth keeping?"

"I think," said Jack, "I've learned not to open containers with evil spirits inside."

"Doubtful," said Chase, "but if you wish to avoid getting killed again, your memory is worth keeping. Even if you are an idiot."

"Hey!"

"I learned that I make a good griffin egg guardian," said Jake, rather pleased with himself. His original mission had been to keep the egg safe, and in that respect he'd done a pretty good job, even if he'd missed the final showdown with the villain who'd been causing all the disruptions that had made that job so much harder. Maybe Fu Dog had been right - maybe the egg had been testing him all along. "And I don't suck at math," he added.

"I am _not_ going through all that again," said Link, with an expression that said that if he ever got stuck in a time loop, he probably _would_ go all psycho-bananas and try to destroy all of reality himself. "Sign me up."

"I've learned that... other universes exist," said Layton. "And... to have a little faith." Here he approached Jake. "I know we've met before, and... I should have done this before, but I'd like to introduce myself properly this time."

"Uh," said Jake, taking a small step back. The griffin in his arms chirped, giving both Jake and Layton a puzzled look.

"I'm Professor Layton," he said, holding out a friendly hand.

"You don't... I mean, you're not freaked out? By me being a dragon?"

Layton sighed gently. "A little, but, given more time, I'm sure I would learn to accommodate myself. After all, the griffin's feather represents the inner self, does it not? Your dragonish appearance may look fearsome, but underneath the fearsome exterior you are still a person deserving of respect, the same as any normal human."

Jake paused thoughtfully, and then looked at Layton - a pleasant but profound stare - seeing the professor in a whole new light. He smiled, extending his hand so that Layton could shake it. "I'm Jake Long. You know, you're a pretty decent guy, for a professor."

"Of _course_ he is," said Luke, as if this was something everyone should already know.

Dashi sighed in defeat. "Okay, okay, I get it. You all make the point well. I mean, it's not as if you remember consciously."

"Um..." said Omi, a little distracted. He looked down at the floor sadly.

"Omi," said Jack quietly. "I know what's bothering you, but... the talking dog is right. Forces of darkness have an annoying habit of coming back, y'know. You wanna be ready for Phantom and make sure that... stuff doesn't ever happen, right?"

"Yes," said Omi determinedly. "You are right, Jack Spicer. I must learn something from this also. Next time, I shall not be defeated!"

"Is everyone ready, then?" said Fu Dog. "No objections?" After a communal nod, he stood up on two legs, like a human, and waved the feather horizontally. A flash of golden light forced everyone to blink... and that was it.

"That's it?" said Jack.

Fu Dog shrugged, and then went back down on all fours. "What were you expecting, fireworks? A song and dance? A flock of griffins to come bulldozing in?"

"But I do not feel any different," said Omi.

"Neither do I," said Link, who often received power-ups of sorts, and usually felt at least _something_ when he did.

"You're not supposed to, that's the point," said Fu.

"Ah," said Dashi, "_that_ kind of magic."

"Are you going to return to your worlds now?" Clockwork asked, looking amused. "Nice though it is that you're all getting along, we haven't got all day. Time doesn't run itself, you know."

He floated upwards and gently knocked his staff against Palkia and Dialga, who'd both fallen asleep, and the two giant dinosaurs both jerked to attention. They parted ways to reveal the portal behind them, Dialga to the blue side and Palkia to the pink side, presumably ready to return everyone to their respective times and places. Dialga had an _I didn't fall asleep, you saw nothing!_ look, while Palkia's snobbish expression said: _if you all hadn't been so boring, maybe I would have stayed awake._

"Interesting choice of words," said Oshus. "Well, it was nice to meet you all. I do hope we will meet again under less hazardous circumstances."

"Likewise," said Professor Layton, tipping his hat.

Luke shook Jake's hand and patted the griffin's head, and the assembled party said their goodbyes, starting to head through the portal in their groups of twos and threes. Before entering, Omi looked back at Dashi for a moment. In his eyes, Dashi had been wearing a superheroic 'D' of his own all along. He hoped he could one day be a grandmaster just like him. He smiled at Dashi, who smiled cheerfully back, and then followed Jack through.

And then, out of the original eleven, just Dashi, Dojo and Chase were left.

Dashi smiled at Chase. "Just like fighting Wuya again, eh?"

Chase sniffed out proudly, but his gaze became just ever so slightly less hard. There really was no point in being angry any more. Everything was going to go back to normal. As it should be. "Take care, Grandmaster," he said, sincerely.


	16. Epilogue: Heroes

**Epilogue: Heroes**

* * *

Dashi sat peacefully on the ground, watching the fluffy clouds float idly by. He had come here to the village down in the valley to get away from the temple for a while. He had defeated Wuya by trapping her inside the puzzle box, but now everyone seemed to think he was some kind of hero. All the attention he'd received had taken him by surprise. Honestly, he hadn't saved the world from Wuya to be _popular_. He was just... doing his thing.

One good thing had come out of all this fame and attention. It seemed everyone wanted to learn the Xiaolin arts, which was great news for his future plans to establish the Xiaolin order. Everyone else had made him grandmaster of the Xiaolin temple, even though construction on the temple hadn't been finished yet. He hadn't really had a say in the matter, it had just kind of... happened.

Well, as grandmaster, he had decided to deactivate the Shen Gong Wu. They were too dangerous. They'd reactivate themselves if they were ever needed again, but for now he was going to travel with Dojo and hide them around the world. This meant leaving Chase and Guan alone for a while... and, for some reason, something about that troubled him.

He sighed, pulling his straw hat down over his head, leaning back comfortably as he forced himself to forget his troubles. It was nice here. Just for a few minutes he could be without any worries, any burdens.

He felt his head clear again. It was nice to be able to relax for a bit, not to have to _pretend_ to be relaxed, but to truly _be_ relaxed. He could fall asleep here...

The perfect moment.

"Pardon me, honourable stranger, I was wondering if you might be able to help me...?"

_Almost_ perfect.

* * *

Omi wasn't really the leader of the Xiaolin warriors, but he liked to think he was. After all, he was the most experienced. He had been training at the temple all his life, while the other three had only been there for a few months. That was why, on that day, he announced the beginning of chores for all four of them. Even though the others could find him overbearing - which Omi thought was ridiculous, all he was doing was imparting his great wisdom on them - they usually tolerated this as part of what made Omi... Omi.

"Stand on your marks," Omi said, and the other three braced themselves. "Set yourselves. Commence with chores! Gong Yi Tanpai!"

This particular task was about teamwork, too - the faster they finished everything, the faster they could do something more enjoyable. But what was this? Raimundo had decided to cheat by hiding the dishes with the Shroud of Shadows? Had he learned nothing? Shame!

"All done!"

"Excuse me?"

Raimundo turned around and folded his arms. ""Hey, just because I'm not a Xiaolin apprentice, doesn't mean I should have to wash all _your_ dirty dishes."

"C'mon, Raimundo," said Kimiko from outside the kitchen. "The sooner we finish our chores, the more time we have to hang."

_Hang? _thought Omi._ Hang what? Ourselves? That would be most painful..._

"Yes," he said out loud. "Although, I might choose a different activity."

Kimiko laughed. "It's an expression, Omi."

_I fear I will never learn all these expressions,_ thought Omi. _Ah, well. Back to work._

The floor was in desperate need of scrubbing, but it was no problem for a great Xiaolin warrior like Omi.

It was a little later when Dojo came noisily announcing the reactivation of a new Shen Gong Wu, but it was Master Fung who revealed what it was - not the Sands of Time, nor the Silver Manta Ray.

It was the Shard of Lightning. The timeline was back on track.

* * *

Lightning flashed atop the cliff.

Jack Spicer grinned, grabbing the Shard of Lightning from right underneath Raimundo's nose. He tapped a large boulder with his foot, and it tipped over the edge. Raimundo was grabbing the edge of the cliff a little lower down, and he swiftly made a mad series of jumps down to avoid being squashed.

Down on the ground, in the little harbour, both Raimundo and Clay ran out of the way of the oncoming mini rockslide, and Jack took the opportunity to take to the air with his remaining Jack-bots, taunting the Xiaolin warriors with his newfound toy.

Later on, down in his basement lab, Jack placed the Shard of Lightning inside a glass cabinet. It had been his greatest plan yet! He'd distracted the Xiaolin warriors with his new Robo-Jack, and they'd been so busy trying to fend it off that he'd got away with the Shard without having to take part in an annoying showdown. Next on the list of evil things to do: steal the rest of the Shen Gong Wu from the Xiaolin temple.

He hi-fived his robot, his exact duplicate. His robots were his only company, his only real way to socialise. They were the only ones who understood him, because he'd programmed them to be that way.

Maybe one day he would be loved and adored by a real human, and accepted for who he was. But for now, this Robo-Jack would do.

* * *

It had to be a trick.

It had to be.

It couldn't be a coincidence that Hannibal Bean had approached him while Dashi was away travelling around the world, hiding all the Shen Gong Wu.

And yet... a strong niggling doubt was there. He knew it was foolish, but his pride had slowly stewed a sort of envy towards Guan. Why was Guan was a Dragon, and not him? It wasn't fair. He had trained for days on end, worked just as hard fighting against Wuya, had helped rescue people and restored their hopes...

It wasn't fair.

_You poor, naive fool... You'll never become a Dragon... Your place in history will be stolen from you, by the one you consider closest..._

That was what Bean had told him... He'd said to Bean that he didn't believe him; but then why would he have gone to meet him if he didn't believe him?

Join the Heylin side...?

Could he really give up everything he had worked for, everything he had fought for, everything he had believed in, to become the best warrior there ever was?

Chase Young picked up the bowl of Lao Mang Long soup, and returned to Hannibal Roy Bean with the answer.

* * *

Why was it that people always thought changing the timeline was a _good_ idea? Going back in time to stop someone becoming evil was the usual one, and while it was an honourable idea in theory, there were always unforeseen consequences. Always. Even Clockwork himself was not immune, since, due to him changing the past, he was now stuck with a demented future version of Danny Phantom from a timeline that no longer existed - inside a puzzle box, no less.

And so, deep within his lair, full of clocks that ticked and clicks that tocked, Clockwork stared at the present day Danny Phantom with a severe frown.

This Danny was not like his crazed future self. Still a teenager, he was a ghost-human hybrid instead of being a full ghost, which meant his ghost form was far more human in appearance. The cold, indifferent red eyes were replaced by alert, bright green eyes and, rather than stalking forward with a predatory leer, he instead stood with a determined stance full of youthful exuberance. He still wore the black and white jumpsuit, though, and Clockwork couldn't help thinking that, sometimes, the letter 'D' stood for 'dunce'. Danny from _any_ timeline had a stubborn streak that no amount of time stream meddling could ever hope to erase. Once he got an idea stuck inside his head, it was impossible to shake it loose.

Still, his heart was in the right place. In fact, this Danny had been the one to trap his darker self inside the Thermos originally. With Clockwork's help, he'd saved his family and friends - from himself. Clockwork could see this Danny's future, and he was going to save the planet, not destroy it. But in the meantime, he'd have to learn the hard way that meddling with the timeline was not something to be taken lightly.

"I know why you're here," said Clockwork. Danny wanted to change the timeline so that one of his archenemies would not turn evil in the past, and would thus stop harassing him in the present.

"You do?" said Danny. "Oh, wait - of course you do. Will you help me, then? Will you transport me back in time?"

"_No_. It's a horrible idea."

* * *

Link took slow, tentative steps, almost tiptoeing as he edged further along the wooden bridge, crossing over a chasm. He was deep within a spacious cavern, and from experience, a cavern this large and quiet usually held some kind of grotesque monster lying in wait. He knew that Bellum was down here, and so he was on high alert, holding the Phantom Sword in his hand.

He reached the other side of the abyss, and with a rumbling noise, the entire expanse shook, forcing Link to the ground. The bridge behind him collapsed.

"Great," said Link, once the shaking had subsided. "No way back." Even better was that he had the annoying mosquito-fairies along with him. Oshus said he needed them to beat Bellum, but he honestly couldn't see how they could help.

He made a growling noise, glaring at the yellow fairy, Ciela. "Can you really not remember what to do?"

"Bellum stole my memories, you stupid dork! Weren't you paying attention to Oshus?"

"How useless are _you_?"

"Shut up and concentrate! If you can weaken him, I'll get them back."

"_Right_." Being a Hero really sucked, sometimes.

Link stepped through, to the next part of the cavern, and made a disgusted noise. What had he stepped in?

It wasn't just the ground. The ceiling was dripping with gooey, purple slime, the walls coated in sticky, purple glop, and in the centre of the cavern was a pool of thick purple sludge.

And there, half submerged in the pool, was Bellum. A monstrous squid, with a single large eye in the centre of its yellow body, along with several smaller eyes peering out of its black tentacles, and its pores oozing with the colour purple.

Link found that he absolutely _loathed_ the colour purple, for no rational reason at all. It must have been because of Bellum.

Right?

Bellum.

It swallowed time streams, life force, memories, events. Or, perhaps, Oshus theorised, it _was_ time streams, life force, memories and events. What would happen if Time itself gained sentience, and was fed up with all the little creatures messing it around so much? All these time paradoxes, alternate timelines - being pulled here, being reworked there - all because the living things couldn't accept Time for what it was.

Was Time the colour purple, then?

It raised its tentacles.

Link growled again, raising the Phantom Sword high. It was time to do his Hero thing again...

* * *

It was not a good day to be an egg.

The egg fell into a chef's kitchen, then it found itself lost in the Easter Egg parade on the streets of New York City, then it managed to get mixed up in the Easter Egg Treasure Hunt, and then it finally ended up on the conveyor belt of a Chocolate Egg Factory. Fortunately, the American Dragon was on the case, with a series of astonishing last-minute rescues that would have made Jake's grandpa proud.

_Or, at least, this __should__ make gramps proud_, he thought, holding the troublesome egg in his arms with pride. _I should be getting a medal for all the flying around I'm doing. I certainly got my day's exercise worth in, that's for sure._

Up high on the Empire State Building, where the griffin had made its nest, Jake approached the mother cautiously, gently placing the egg inside the nest. The mother reared up on two feet and made a screeching noise, before calming down.

"Here it is, safe and sound!" Jake said. "Just like I promised."

"And just in time, kid!" said Fu Dog, pointing to the egg with a paw. "Take a look - you're about to witness one of the miracles of the magical world."

The egg hatched, and out popped the griffin cub. And, on seeing the mother nudge the cub affectionately, Jake decided that, even though being the American Dragon could be stressful and took a lot of hard work, it was all worth it when you saw a sight like this. This was what being a hero was all about.

And, of course, the griffin cub remembered everything.

* * *

_What an odd dream_, thought Luke. _Dragons and magic and a red-eyed ghost monster. And I was trying to convince the professor it was all real…_

Fragments of memories and images competed for space in his mind. The humungous space dinosaurs. The elf. The endless white. The talking dog, and the Chinese monk who had given them the puzzle box.

Both of them had been in Folsense. Had that been a dream, too?

What kind of place _was_ Folsense? Maybe the whole vampire thing was false, too.

Luke sat up from his lying down position and rubbed his eyes. _I can't believe I fell asleep_ _again_.

He was on a bed, in the room that Duke Anton had provided for him and Layton to sleep in. Layton was standing next to his own bed on the other side of the room, looking at one of many paintings on the wall. Hand on chin, he was in what Luke called "Intuition Mode". Something was troubling him about the painting.

"Is something the matter, Professor?"

"Oh, Luke, you're awake. See all the paintings in this room? The artist has dated all of them. They are approximately 50 years old, which is consistent with my own observations - they are slightly worn on the edges. But, this one here..."

It was a painting of Anton at a ball, dancing with a beautiful lady, who was in a shimmering blue gown and wearing expensive looking earrings. The problem was...

"If it's from 50 years ago," Luke said, "how come Anton hasn't aged? If he really _isn't_ a vampire, I mean."

"Yes. Indeed. I don't quite understand it... yet. Perhaps the rumours are not entirely unfounded.

"And yet we must remain calm...

Layton had a knowing expression, but before Luke could ask what was on his mind, an odd yellow mist seemed to rise up from the carpet. Luke could feel the thickness enter his lungs, like a coal miner breathing in dust - and suddenly they were in the middle of the ball itself. The painting had inexplicably come to life. Lots of people were dancing in a large chamber, but both Luke and Layton had their eyes on the couple in the centre. Anton was dancing with the same pretty lady from the painting.

"What's going on?" said Luke, bewildered. They'd been sucked inside the painting. How was that even possible?

The lady gasped as she locked eyes with the two strangers, and the ballroom music suddenly stopped, all the dancers immediately looking into the centre.

"Don't worry, my dear," said Anton, letting go of the lady's hands. He walked very slowly, very deliberately towards Luke and Layton, smirking widely. "They're just the main course for this evening - and don't they look fresh!"

"_What_?" said Layton sharply.

The people hissed menacingly to reveal fangs and lurched awkwardly, surrounding the professor and Luke. The chamber snapped to complete darkness, and all that could be seen were glowing red eyes...

Layton opened his eyes. Now he was in a different room, a far less spectacular room with grey, tired walls. He appeared to be tied up by rope, and upon that discovery cold panic set in - where was Luke? - but to his relief the boy was right next to him, bound in a similar way by rope as well.

"Splendid! You're awake! It's been far too long since I've encountered prey so... feisty."

Layton twisted his head round, fixing a glare on Anton. "Anton... What madness is this?"

"I knew it!" said Luke. "You _are_ a vampire!"

"If you knew that, then it was rather foolish of you to venture here, wouldn't you say? Either way, it's too late for you now. I must begin... preparations. In the meantime, why don't you stay put and enjoy your final moments together?"

Luke had never seen the Professor lose his temper - _really_ lose his temper - but this was coming close.

Very annoyingly, Anton paid this no heed, turning around and slamming the door shut.

"Did you hear that? He's going to eat us!"

"Luke." Layton had that firm, reassuring look that he'd had in the dark forest. "Take a deep breath. Collect yourself."

"But...!"

"There's no need to worry, my boy. Watch."

Luke waited patiently for a few moments as Layton moved around ever so slightly; and then Layton's arms stretched out - he was free!

"That was a bit easy," said Luke, as Layton worked to get him free as well.

"Yes, clearly our captor is no sailor. There's no time to waste. We must escape from here."

Surprisingly, the door was unlocked. They exited the small room, and fortunately there seemed to be only one way to go. They ran up some stairs and climbed through a grate in the room at the end, and soon they found themselves back in the entrance chamber, where the butler had led them through the wooden door.

"Professor, we can get out this way!"

The professor folded his arms, not moving. "Luke, wait. Our search led us _here_, to the castle. We're on the verge of discovering what killed Dr. Schrader."

"Wait, what - you want to go _back_?"

"Listen, Luke. We're so close... So close to uncovering the truth about Folsense and the Elysian Box. We can't turn back and run, not now."

Luke was going to protest that yes they could very well run! But he stopped himself short when he saw the professor's expression. There was no fear or hesitation to be found there at all, just a calm, self-confidence, that he knew exactly what he was doing. _Trust me, Luke_, those warm eyes said.

And Luke did.

They had been on mystifying and terrifying adventures like this one before, and Layton had always managed to pull the proverbial rabbit out of the hat and solve the mystery. It was a kind of magic all unto its own, really. Never mind the dragons and monsters and time travel of that dream that felt like more than just a dream.

They say that seeing is believing, but in Folsense, believing was seeing.

And what Luke believed in most right now was Professor Layton.

* * *

The Observants.

It never ceased to amaze Clockwork how brilliantly short-sighted these floating eyeballs could be. They always looked at the now, the present. They never saw the larger picture. What was to be. What could have been. What should never be.

"Have you taken the necessary precautions to ensure that this doesn't happen again?" Eyeball Two asked.

"I can only manage and oversee the time streams of our own world. I cannot rule out another widespread space-time disturbance like this one if it originates from another world. However," he added quickly, before the Eyes could object, "if you are asking whether I have imprisoned the puzzle box containing Phantom's evil self, then, yes. I've entrusted it to Frostbite."

This seemed to mollify the two Observants. Frostbite was the leader of a group of Yeti-ghosts, a noble tribe of ghosts with the unusual ability to shoot ice. Frostbite was extremely trustworthy; he already had several valuable and dangerous objects in his possession that he kept under constant guard. An extra box to watch over wouldn't have made much difference to the Yeti. Everything froze the same way.

"And did he ask why he was given such a task?" said Eyeball One.

"He did," said Clockwork, frowning a little. He hadn't had the heart to tell Frostbite who was inside the box, because the Yeti-ghosts held Danny in high esteem for all the heroic acts he'd performed prior to the tragic accident that, in the old timeline, had killed his family. He didn't want to shatter Danny's Hero image. So, instead, he'd just told Frostbite to treat it as he would Pandora's Box. The Box existed for real in Clockwork's world, and was currently under the care of Pandora herself. Frostbite had seen the importance of keeping the puzzle box forever frozen, even if he didn't know what was inside.

"Does he know what's inside?" One pressed.

"I impressed upon him the importance of keeping it constantly frozen," Clockwork said.

"And what about Danny Phantom?" Two asked. "The present Danny Phantom, that is."

"What _about_ Danny Phantom?"

"You can see the current future, can you not? Will this Danny Phantom turn evil?"

"That's breaking the rules, and I'm not going to disclose that information. The only reason I intervened in the timeline in the first place is because you asked me to, remember? 'Kill Danny Phantom so that that horrible future never comes to pass.' That's what you asked me to do. Even though you shouldn't have known about that future in the first place."

"And instead of killing him you cheated and created a time paradox where his evil self still exists!" Two snapped, completely ignoring Clockwork's last sentence.

"Cheated," Clockwork said flatly. He'd given Danny a second chance. That was what he'd done. The Observants were so hung up on Danny's dark future that they couldn't see his potential for creating a _good_ future. There were enough humans doing indescribable acts throughout the world. Greed, anger, power - it was human nature. And ghosts were no better. Why the Observants chose to fixate on Danny when there was so much evil still out there was beyond Clockwork. "Because you wouldn't have done the same if it suited you," he said.

"Don't tell me you don't modify the timeline in tiny ways to suit your own needs, Clockwork," Eyeball One said bitterly.

"Of course," said Clockwork a little smugly, not even bothering to deny it this time, "but that's because I can see how it all plays out. You can't. This is all irrelevant, anyway. You shouldn't be worried about whether Danny Phantom turns evil. What you should be worried about is whether Grandmaster Dashi turns evil."

Now _that_ took the wind out of their argumentative sails, but they both looked even more as though their Complainant ship had sunk.

"_What?_" said Two, completely aghast.

"But we already know that doesn't happen!" One insisted.

"Yes, in an unaltered timeline. But what if someone decides to go back in time and stop Chase from drinking the Lao Mang Long potion? And Dashi drinks it instead?"

The silence that followed could be described as stunned horror.

"I think," said Two slowly, "that you should continue to watch Dashi's timeline."

"So do I," said Clockwork pleasantly. "So do I."

* * *

**Author's notes:** There is one more part to go before the end. It serves as what they call a "sequel hook". :)


End file.
